Like Prince Harry, my memoir estranged me from my family

Evening Standard

9 hours ago

But it was too late; the idea had become far bigger than me. It took in the vast sweep of my mother's stalled writing career and my burgeoning one. Yes, cynics may say it took on a commercial life, but it also took on an emotional one, too: the chance to write our relationship again, line by line. I felt – as I still do – that it might help people. As it has turned out, I don't think I was wrong. But it has also pained those close to me by exposing actors in my close family and, like Harry, I am now confronted with a wall of silence and boarded-up Instagram profiles. My uncle and my half-brother will not speak to me. I reproach them nothing; I remain as I am; I am still here. I reproach them nothing; I remain as I am; I am still here.. Two things can be true at the same time I heard someone say in an AA meeting once and I am reminded – now daily - of how hard this is to understand, of just how problematic memoir is. Often, I get the feeling, as memoirist Emily Fox-Gordon writes that 'some internal gear had failed to engage'.