That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, Dutchess of Windsor

I can’t believe I spent as much time reading That Woman: The Life of Wallis Simpson, the Dutchess of Windsor, by Anne Sebba, as I did. Sort of like reading the People Magazine, or the online articles about celebrity breakups and marriages. . . I hope no one saw me reading it. . .

Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor was born in Baltimore in 1896 to precarious financial circumstances, and strove all her life to raise herself to a level of financial security. She finally reached her goal when the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, later the Duke of Windsor, became totally, obsessively besotted with her and renounced his crown to be “with the woman I love.”

Anne Sebba, however, seems to imply in her biography that the widely reviled Wallis really didn’t want to marry the King, that Wallis suffered from a disorder of indeterminate sexual expression, and that the King suffered from Asperger’s Syndrome (even though he was notably charming and quite the womanizer in his pre-Wallis days). In addition, the King comes across as a total dolt, ignoring any and all work of state in favor of repeated phone calls with Wallis every day.

This book is weighed down by poor writing, too much unfounded arm-chair psychoanalysis, and the fact that Wallis was sort of a nasty bitch from the word go.

"Canada" by Richard Ford

I read my Best Fiction of 2012 this week.   Canada by Richard Ford is an outstanding work of art, made more so by the gentle, unhurried unfolding of its terrible tale. It begins:

“First, I’ll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later.”

So fifteen year-old Dell Parsons tells about the robbery that tore his family apart, dividing his life into “before” and “after”, and how his mother, his father, his twin sister and he each found their way into new lives. Told with Ford’s signature internal dialogs by the now-adult Dell, this is a haunting story of loss, broken trust, rebellion, the occasional kindness of strangers, and the shocking life decisions made by seemingly reasonable people.

There is nothing else to say: This is Ford’s masterpiece, a huge story, told by a heartbroken boy in a quiet, calm voice.  Fiction doesn't get much better than this.