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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/22\/books\/review\/charles-spencer-swan-song.html?emc=edit_nn_20260923&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226928",
    "parsed_content": "British RoyalsHarry and Meghan Return to BritainRift in the Royal FamilyPrivacy LawsuitKing Charles\u2019s Cancer DiagnosisAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTNonfictionA Brotherly Tribute to the People\u2019s Princess, No Holds Barred\u201cSwan Song,\u201d Charles Spencer\u2019s memoir of Lady Diana, is full of love and vengeance.Share full articlePrincess DianaCredit...Phil O'Brien\/PA, via ReutersBy Alexandra JacobsSept. 22, 2026Leer en espa\u00f1olSee more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google SWAN SONG: Diana, My Sister, by Charles SpencerDelivering a eulogy is hard enough. Now imagine delivering one to around 2.5 billion people.This was the surreal task that fell to Charles Spencer, younger brother of Diana, the Princess of Wales after she died following a car crash at 36 in the summer of 1997. Her driver, who had been trying to evade paparazzi, died at the scene, along with her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.In a speech that was beamed from Westminster Abbey, Spencer chastised the press whose pursuit led to Diana\u2019s demise and sideswiped the royal family that had, among other indignities, stripped her of her title. \u201cA girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting,\u201d he noted, \u201cwas, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.\u201dThe applause that followed began outside, among the hoi polloi whose adoration led to her anointment as the People\u2019s Princess. Scattered at first, the clapping began to spread, becoming a wall of sound that rolled into the abbey, up to the vaulted ceilings, and through living rooms around the world.Now, almost 30 years later, comes the coda: Spencer\u2019s elegant and reproving new memoir, \u201cSwan Song.\u201d In between, with a degree in history from Oxford, he became a part-time journalist and wrote nine books of nonfiction, as if to model a standard of truth-telling disregarded in the \u201ccoverage\u201d of his sister.Swan Song Save to your reading list:Want to readHave readNeither of Spencer\u2019s parents lived past 70, and at 62 he feels a sense of if-not-now-when. \u201cThis is the work that really matters to me,\u201d he writes.The title alludes not only to his own fatalism, but to Diana\u2019s favorite black swans from a board game that they played as children. A lament of them now circle the island where she is buried.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cSwan Song\u201d is most compelling as a postcard from the siblings\u2019 nursery, where their bond was solidified after their parents\u2019 marriage dissolved in the late 1960s. (Two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, had already left the house.) He called her \u201cDuch.\u201d She called him \u201cCarlos.\u201d He still remembers \u201cthe squeak of our descent\u201d as they slid, against the house rules, down the well-polished wooden banister of Park House.Theirs was an upbringing typical of upper-class families, of well-appointed neglect. There were good nannies and very bad nannies, one of whom bashed their heads together or against a concrete wall. Spencer wrote about further abuse in his 2024 memoir, \u201cA Very Private School\u201d (as used to be customary for his class, he was sent off, miserable, at the age of 8). But contrary to reports, he writes, his father, John, the eighth Earl of Spencer, was a gentle if traditional and parsimonious soul: hiring a camel named Bert for Diana\u2019s 7th birthday party and taking them for ice-cream outings on Brancaster beach.ImageTheir parents\u2019 marriage was frayed inexorably by the death of their first son, born with a hole in the back of his head and other malformations, possibly due to a Thalidomide-like medication. The children\u2019s mother, Frances, left John for Peter Shand Kydd after falling in love with him on a ski trip, leaving Diana, who supposed herself a disappointing third daughter, permanently bereft and taking on a maternal role herself, drawing curtains against the dark at night and checking up on her \u201cCarlos\u201d in nursery school.Contrary to the shy lip-biter portrayed on \u201cThe Crown,\u201d Diana is in Spencer\u2019s telling fierce and athletic, diving off a high slide into the family\u2019s pool and once pushing their loathed stepmother, Raine, down a carpeted staircase like a character in \u201cDynasty.\u201d On one lobster-potting trip, as others cowered, Diana killed a four-foot-long conger eel with a swift penknife blow behind the eyes.With his pen, her brother likewise delivers a series of lacerations to his former in-laws. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, exiled from the princehood after his association with the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, is spotted smirking as a teen after a priest refers to \u201cthe Virgin\u2019s womb.\u201d Princess Anne comes off as just rude, batting away his teenage attempts at small talk. Prince Charles gets mingy when Diana tries to give her brother some unused household items bearing their shared name, then later angles to be at the center of his ex-wife\u2019s two-mile funeral procession. (He did not prevail.) \u201cRest assured,\u201d he hisses to Spencer during their discussion of funeral arrangements. \u201cWe\u2019ll forget her soon enough.\u201dYeah \u2026 no.Even with all its bitterness toward bad actors, like the deceptive Diana interviewer Martin Bashir, this is a lyrical book that delights in moments of the British absurd. One member of Prince Charles\u2019s retinue bleats \u201cI am a tree!,\u201d Monty Pythonishly, as he tries to blend in during Diana\u2019s burial. Elsewhere, Spencer seems to relish the chambermaids\u2019 helplessly evocative names \u2014 Violet Collison? \u2014 and remembers thinking his mother was declaring herself \u201cgoing potty,\u201d as in crazy, when in fact she was just announcing a visit to the loo.This is the work of a man who is resigned but has not given up.SWAN SONG: Diana, My Sister | By Charles Spencer | Penguin Press | 384 pp. | $35AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-22T04:02:04+00:00",
    "author_name": "Alexandra Jacobs",
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    "ai_headline": "A Brotherly Tribute to the People\u2019s Princess, No Holds Barred",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Charles Spencer Memoir Honors Princess Diana, Criticizes Royals and Media",
    "ai_excerpt": "Charles Spencer's memoir, \"Swan Song,\" offers a deeply personal and critical look at his sister Princess Diana's life and death. It combines loving childhood memories with sharp critiques of the royal family and the press.",
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