Monica Ali weaves a concoction of facts and fiction in Untold Story: A Novel. The story is based on a fictional premise that Princess Diana faked her death, not in the car accident but in a drowning incident.
Why would this woman leave her friends, her life, and most of all her two boys? According to the Diana in this story, she was unraveling due to the high cost of being a public figure. She was paranoid about the palace scheming to kill her in some fashion to look like an accident. She figured that if they succeeded, her sons would be left without a mother anyway, so why not just leave everything behind and start anew?
The Trials and Tribulations of Princess Diana
The book weaves many actual events into the story. As Diana, now calling herself Lydia, recollects on her life, it is easy for readers to see the actual events that she brings to mind. Her famous clothes and her confrontations with the media on several occasions are part of her memories. This makes the story interesting, but it still is a strange tale concocted by the author.
The pressures on Princess Diana since the days when she was dating Charles were enormous, and even more so during her life in the palace. When they divorced the attention never waned. Instead she was hounded even more by the paparazzi.
Her eating disorders and emotional ups and downs are all addressed in this story as Diana, now Lydia, still suffers from them. What is that old saying? You can leave a place behind but you take yourself with you.
With the help of one of her security people with whom she had had a close friendship, they devised a plan for her to go on the yacht of her Middle Eastern boyfriend and stage a disappearance. She swam over to the boat where her friend was waiting and they left. Because there no body was found, the public all thought she had been eaten by sharks.
With several plastic surgery operations, some hair color, and a new clothing style, Lydia began her life as a private citizen. But all the time she had to look behind her back in case someone caught onto who she really was.
Hiding in a Small Town
Lydia had moved several times, but finally found a small rural American town in which she felt comfortable. She settled down – with a job and friends. These friends liked her for who she was, not because she was famous. She finally learned what a normal life is like. All the while she kept newspaper and magazine clippings of her sons as they grew up and matured.
The story flips back and forth between the security man who always wondered if he did the right thing by helping her escape, and Lydia.
Untold Story: A Novel
The story is definitely far-fetched, but it does bring up the problems of fame and celebrity. Diana had a troubled life as the Princess of Wales. Her husband had a mistress from the time they were married. She had to deal with plenty of public situations while suffering in private.
The book was first published when Diana would have celebrated her 50th birthday. As she looks back on her life at the palace and her experiences as Lydia, this character learns how to survive in life. With a boyfriend who really loves her, something she feels she had never had before, and good friends, she finds peace. Or does she? Is someone watching her? Is her secret about to come out?
While this is not a book I would recommend to many people, those who are interested in this story will enjoy it precisely because the actual events are cleverly woven into the book, even the part about the “near-fatal” accident in the Paris tunnel. In this story, she survived. She survived to escape her life and her nightmares. But will she ever escape completely?
- Untold Story: A Novel by Monica Ali
- Publisher: Scribner
- Hardcover Release June, 2011
- 272 Pages
- ISBN: 10: 1451635486
- ISBN: 13: 9781451635485
