The Darkness of Wallis Simpson

A wonderful new collection of short stories, most of which are\npublished here for the first time. Wallis Simpson, the\ntwice-divorced American woman for whom Edward VIII abdicated in\n1936, ended her life (as the Duchess of Windsor) as the prisoner of\nher lawyer who would not allow anyone — friend, foe or journalist —\nto visit her in her Paris flat. Rose Tremain takes this true story\nand transforms it into an imaginative and ironic fiction. Her\nthesis is that Wallis, gaga and bed-ridden, had forgotten the king\nwho gave up an empire for love of her. This superb story plays with\nthe selectiveness of memory: why does Wallis recall the seemingly\nunimportant, while forgetting the glory days of her notoriety? She\ncan remember her first two husbands — one a bit of a brute, the\nother very boring — but not the world-famous third one. The other\nstories in this magnificent collection range over a variety of\nthemes, equally original and unexpected: an East German border\nguard, redundant after the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, imagines\nthat he might still have a purpose in life. He tries to reach\nRussia by bicycling across the hostile wastes of Poland. A jilted\nman gets his revenge. A baby grows wings. A character in an\nImpressionist painting escapes from his “frame” — or does he? And\nthere’s a Christmas story set in a seedy hotel. From the Hardcover\nedition.

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