Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret

June 15, 2018

In this biography from noted satirist Brown, one expects and gets an effective skewering of both its subject, England's Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (1930-2002), only sister to the reigning Queen Elizabeth II, and the entire royal industry and its hangers-on, yet a small balm of sympathy for Margaret is added to the mix. Relegated by chance of birth to a secondary position--always a princess, never a queen--Margaret meandered through life performing official royal duties and acts of personal self-indulgence, which Brown bounds through in 99 chapters of diaries, essays, minutiae, and a few imaginings of his own. The expected portrait emerges of Margaret as snobbish and exacting, an inveterate rank-puller and a dreadful dinner guest--and also a woman who turned to alcohol and affairs to fill up the empty tedium between charity visits and ribbon cuttings. VERDICT Readers wanting a straightforward biography should look elsewhere, but those interested in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes gloomy view of Princess Margaret through a variety of lenses, or a look at how popular representation shapes our view of a public figure should snap up this book.--Kathleen McCallister, Tulane Univ., New Orleans

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 11, 2018
Chatty, catty, and intelligent, Brown’s portrayal in vignettes of Britain’s Princess Margaret (1930–2002) draws from published memoirs, interviews, and diaries. The “disobedient, attention-seeking” Margaret, writes critic and satirist Brown (One on One), grew up suffering in comparison to her older sister, who became Queen Elizabeth II. As “the one who wouldn’t ever be first,” Margaret was born to fulfill menial duties such as “the patronage of the more obscure charity, the glad-handing of the smaller fry.” She captured the world’s sympathy with her first, doomed romance to Royal Air Force pilot Peter Townsend (he was divorced and the queen refused to grant Margaret permission to marry him). “The rest of us are allowed to forget a youthful passion, but the world defined Princess Margaret by hers,” writes Brown. Margaret was a magnet for people who were “mesmerized less by her image than by the cracks to be found in it.” She was invited to events because she could be counted on to misbehave deliciously: “The presence of the Princess would endow a party with grandeur; her departure would be the signal for mimicry to commence.” Brown is sympathetic to the plight of a woman who, as a friend said, was “one of the cleverest women... I have ever met, and she never really had an outlet for her intelligence.” Brown’s entertaining vignettes form a collage portrait of a rebellious anti-Cinderella.

July 1, 2018
Sensationalistic snippets from the life of a royal princess.In this biographical montage of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon (1930-2002), Daily Mail columnist Brown (Hello Goodbye Hello: A Circle of 101 Remarkable Meetings, 2012, etc.) reflects on the true nature of her regal life and loves. The author's "appetite for royal kitsch" surely fueled the culling of the book's material, which ranges from both adulating and scathing biographies to the letters and diaries of, among others, Peter Sellers and Gore Vidal. Brown lays bare the facets of Margaret's notoriously sharp-tongued personality, often abrasive behavior, affinity for well-heeled bohemia, and rumored sexual affairs. The author spares little in his scrutiny as the references hopscotch from the ubiquitous mentions of Margaret's name in notable texts and palace announcements to the post-mortem sale pricing of her jewelry collection. In a moment of parody, one of Brown's specialties, he hilariously imagines Margaret's marriage to Pablo Picasso. Many particularly scandalous chapters feature essays, opinions, and interview snippets categorizing Margaret as either an aloof snob who "turned pickiness into an art form" or a smug brat whose self-superiority and "snappiness was instinctive and unstoppable, like a nervous twitch." Collectively, the narrative creates a brutally honest yet dramatically unflattering portrait of Margaret's regal sybaritic lifestyle, her legacy of boorish behavior, and the competitiveness and outspokenness that doomed her friendships and her stormy marriage to Lord Snowdon. While savory overall, the onslaught of dishy details bends beneath its own weight in the book's final third. Fusing facts with fancifulness, Brown's barbed, devilishly entertaining narrative exposes Margaret for the majesty she embodied and, to some, consistently tarnished, but the author barely contributes to explanations as to why she felt so "hurt by life" and behaved accordingly. Biographer Hugo Vickers opined that the difficult Queen Mother-Princess daughter relationship was the glaring culprit.An endlessly provocative and deliciously scandalous book for royal watchers.

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