Royal family has not had advance copy of Duke of Sussex’s memoir
THE Royal family is braced to read the Duke of Sussex’s memoir at the same time as the public, The Sunday Telegraph understands.
Neither the Prince of Wales nor the Duke of Cambridge has seen any part of the manuscript, or even been told when the book will be published.
Their lawyers and advisers have also been kept in the dark.
The highly anticipated book is expected to be published this autumn. Sources close to Prince Charles indicated that he would have hoped members of his team would have been sent a copy in advance of publication.
They said, however, that it was “unlikely to be on his reading list”.
There has been no official word about the “intimate and heartfelt memoir” since last summer, when Penguin Random House announced that it was “tentatively scheduled” for late this year.
Theories abound about the ensuing silence, fuelled by rumours that it has been delayed or unsubstantiated concerns about it going head to head with Michelle Obama’s forthcoming memoir, The Light We Carry, to be released on Nov 15.
Palace aides are aware that this is a book in need of little publicity. Having spent a reputed $20million (£17million) to secure the deal, a pre-publication strategy will have been carefully designed.
The book is understood to have been finished and has “gone through all of the legal processes”, leading some to speculate that Penguin is going for a “shock drop” by which publication will be preceded by a short, sharp flurry of revelations.
Nervous anticipation has cast a long shadow over the Royal family, doing little to repair already fractured relationships with the Sussexes.
As such, palace sources find it difficult to envisage a situation in which Prince Harry might enjoy a reunion with his brother during next month’s brief return to the UK.
Some are surprised that Penguin appears prepared to risk its reputation by publishing a book likely to contain highly subjective allegations. However, royal aides shrewdly note they will be acutely aware that the Royal family would never sue one of its own.
While it is common practice for the purposes of accuracy to run certain allegations by those involved in advance of publication, in this case the risks are considered small.
There is also no legal obligation to offer a right of reply.
It is believed that any publicity will be kept to a minimum and will be largely focused on the US market.
A television appearance with a friendly network or an interview in a glossy magazine such as Vanity Fair are thought possible.
An alternative theory being discussed in royal circles is that the book will not contain the expected “explosive” revelations but will instead be so bland there was deemed no reason to give anyone advance sight of its pages.
“These publishers are too not the types to publish and be damned,” said one source. “They have reputations to protect. The biggest potential issue is not defamation but truth – accuracy.”
The book has been ghost-written by Pulitzer-winning author and journalist J R Moehringer, who also ghost-wrote Andre Agassi’s best-selling memoir, Open, published in 2009.
There are potential parallels. Moehringer has described how Agassi was drawn to him because of his own “complex, difficult” relationship with his father, to which he could relate.
He described how Agassi told him “he knew the stories of his life but he didn’t know what they meant – or what the truths were about his life that he had been searching for”.
They started by having a “long, really wonderful conversation about his life” that “worked like therapy”.
The Duke spoke last year about the “genetic pain” he feels was passed down through his family, and his desire to “break the cycle”. He has vowed to donate the proceeds of the book to charity and said he was “excited for people to read a firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful”.