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    Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue
    Unavailable
    Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue
    Unavailable
    Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue
    Ebook257 pages7 hours

    Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue

    By Kate Auspitz

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Scandalous divorcée. Nazi sympathizer. Style icon. Her Grace the Duchess of Windsor. Such are the many—and many times questionable—monikers of the infamous Wallis Simpson. And with Wallis’s War, Kate Auspitz adds another to this list: unwitting heroine.

    The facts: reviled by the British as a social-climbing seductress even as Time magazine named her its 1936 Woman of the Year, Simpson was the American socialite whose affair with King Edward VIII led him to abdicate the throne on the eve of WWII. In this fanciful novel written in the form of a fictional memoir, Auspitz imagines an alternative history in which Simpson was encouraged by Allied statesmen to remove defeatist, pro-German Edward from the throne, forever altering the course of the war. A comically unreliable narrator who knows more than she realizes, and reveals more than she knows, Simpson leads us from historic treaties and military campaigns to dinner parties and cruises as she describes encounters with everyone from Duff and Diana Cooper to Charles Lindbergh, Coco Chanel, and Hitler—all the while acting as a willing but seemingly oblivious pawn of international intrigue.

    A rare blend of diplomacy and dalliance, fashion and fascists, this meticulously researched satire offers witty and erudite entertainment and leaves us speculating: who really brought about the abdication and—always—what were they wearing?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateMay 14, 2015
    ISBN9780226240411
    Unavailable
    Wallis's War: A Novel of Diplomacy and Intrigue

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    Reviews for Wallis's War

    4/5

    28 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was an unexpectedly fun book. I started out being a bit sceptical as initially the narrator is unappealing, so self-centred, vain, and manipulative. But as the book evolves so does her character and one appreciates how she worked(?) her way up in society. The book is fun through the completely outrageous things she says, such as "A college can't tell the King that his heir has the IQ of a radish." No P.C. for Wallis! There were many times I found myself laughing out loud. I found the famous, influential, powerful people Wallis came in contact with and interacted with throughout the book interesting as well, Somerset Maugham, P.G. Wodehouse, Coco Chanel, Hitler, the Lindberghs, Joseph Kennedy, Harold Nicholson to name a few. Her opinions of these people and conversations with them are entertaining and edifying to say the least.The War Memoir of (HRH) Wallis, Duchess of Windsor (as she so desired to be called) is a fascinating account, however fictional, of a dramatic, terrible point in our history, from a very unique perspective and I enjoyed it tremendously.
    • 4/5
      This was an interesting, and at times challenging read. Interesting in that the tone for the story of Wallis Simpson was aptly captured with the epigraph by Anatole France at the start of the book: "It is extremely difficult to write history... it requires imagination." That is so true. Presented as a recently discovered 'memoir' of the deceased Duchess of Windsor, the story has everything one might look for in a war time historical fiction - individuals representing high society, political intrigues, military strategy, romantic dalliances and allegiance swapping - all conveyed in the dry, abrasive wit of Auspitz's Mrs. Simpson. I had to get up to speed on the historical figures that are everyday fixtures in the book - the Lindberghs, Duff Cooper, Sir Harold Nicolson, Coco Chanel and Somerset Maugham just to name a few - but once I had the players figured out it was an easy story to stay interested in. Nicknames abound in this book - a lot of them derogatory in nature - that pepper the pages with Mrs. Simpson's observations as she travels with her husband Edward VIII on a politically charged visit to Germany, crisscrossing western Europe and settling in the Bahamas where Edward is made the Governor General. Auspitz's portrayal of Mrs. Simpson is of an ambitious woman deciding to make the best of her situation when she realizes that she would never become queen. Whether she married Edward out of love or to help the British government keep him and his extreme viewpoints off the throne and whether Mrs. Simpson was 'handled' by government officials to help them with their political intrigues, well, that is an interesting point Auspitz raises for speculation. Overall, a good historical fiction for readers interested in stories of the politics behind World War II and the abdication of Edward VIII for the love of his life.
    • 3/5
      Maybe I'm to much of a romantic, but I've always been intrigued that a man who could be King would give up his crown for he woman he loved. For that reason I requested this book from the ER program. I admit to not knowing much of the history of Wallis and Edward before reading this and maybe that would have put the book in better context for me. Unfortunately through this book I lost a lot of my admiration for Wallis and Edward. The book is well-written and quite realistic so that the reader forgets it is a novel and not a real memoir. I didn't discover the footnotes until quite well into the book and wished I had seen them earlier as I felt that they do add to the understanding along the way. Wallis as the main character is portrayed as vain, selfish and not above allowing herself to be used by those who "handled" her and Edward throughout. I rapidly came to dislike her and her flirtatious, self-centered ways.Edward is there in more of a supporting role and I found Wallis' treatment of him less than admirable. I suppose if the facts are true, then he maybe was somewhat boyish as he seemed to be more interested in entertaining activities rather than world affairs.I did enjoy the many references to historical figures. The world becomes a smaller place when looked at on such a grand scale. What I might have wished for more of would be background details, but being a memoir, I guess that implies a more one-sided focus and the author accomplished that extremely well.
    • 4/5
      I must admit I rather naively believed the jacket blurb that this book would be an actual memoir. It turned out instead to be an entertaining imagining of the life of Wallis Simpson, thoroughly researched and backed up with photographs and footnotes supporting key events in her life. I had to keep flipping to the back of the book to read the footnotes and would have preferred them to be at the bottom of the page, but perhaps that would have interrupted the narrative too much.Since I had no prior knowledge of or interest in Wallis Simpson beyond knowing that King Edward VIII abdicated his crown to marry her, I was rather shocked at her portrayal as shallow, vain, uneducated and amoral, with utter disdain for her supposed great love, calling him "boysy" and "Lightning Brain", and manipulating him shamelessly. At one point she says he has the "IQ of a radish". In this story, she only marries him because she is convinced by others that it would be good for the country to remove him from office because of his Nazi sympathies and the impending war. In fact, the great love of her life is someone else, Count Galeazzo Ciano, son-in-law of Mussolini, with whom she has affair both before and after her marriage to the Duke of Windsor.The Duchess seems only to care about her clothing and jewels and social engagements, and the war is just an inconvience to her life, but she does agree, while in "exile" in the Bahamas, to send disinformation to the German foreign minister, a man she despises but who apparently adores her and showers her with roses.The book is quite fanciful, and at the beginning I was wondering why I continued reading it, since the characters were quite unsympathetic and downright loathsome. However, as I got further into the story, I found myself wondering how it was all going to end, and curious about how the war affected their lives. It certainly seems that in snagging "the most eligible bachelor in the world", the ambitions of Wallis were thwarted by other royals who would not allow her to be queen, and she ended up living a parasitic and meaningless life with a man who bored her silly.I can recommend this book for its humour and for interesting me enough to want to read some historical non-fiction accounts of their lives, to see if they were really that appalling.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book! To be honest, I am NOT a history buff so I really didn't have the historical context to make sense of this. Instead, I read it as an engrossing historical fiction/ mystery/ comedy about a character I knew little about. Wallis was quite vain but I really couldn't help but like her at the end. She was more a pawn then anything else so I felt sorry for her and the strange life she lead. Very enjoyable and highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      War Memoir is an entertaining read. In this historical novel, Ms Auspitz imagines a plausable scenario behind the headlines of the famous marriage of Wallis Simpson to a one time King of England, and his abdication.It was no secret that Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) was a Nazi sympathizer. He was of limited intelligence and his emotional development was stunted by a harsh upbringing. In normal times this would not be any impediment to his reign as a constitutional monarch, but England was facing a very dangerous threat and the defense of the realm would have been handicaped by a pro German monarch. The abdication of the Duke due to his unpopular marriage was later seen as a fortuitus event and key to the survival of the monarchy. In this novel, Ms Auspitz imagines that the marriage took place for that very purpose and that Mrs Simpson was a knowing participant. Thus she was not desperately in love with the King but married out of a sense of duty to assist the allies. This is a little out of synch for the character of Mrs Simpson as developed by Ms Auspitz but nevertheless, the story works well. The book is full of witty chats by famous people and dry humour (Wallis' nickname for the Duke is LB for Lightning Brain). She refers to her sister -in-law, the Queen mother as 'Cookie' and to the future Elizabeth II as 'Shirley Temple'. And then there is the possible impotency of the Duke...the odious Lindberghs, and really it is just a good story.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      I received “The War Memoirs Of (HRH) Wallis Duchess Of Windsor” by Kate Auspitz through Early Reviewers. It covers the period of her divorce in 1936 to the end of the war. The surprise of the book is the way the British government ‘handled’ her to bring about the results they wanted. First to ensure the marriage would happen and as a result remove Edward VIII from the throne so his Nazi leanings would not influence Britain’s role in the coming war, and then to pass information, or rather misinformation, to Joachim von Ribbentrop, Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 to 1945. She is presented as a pathetic, vain figure whose main concerns are clothes, gossip, i.e. what people are saying about her, and managing her husband. He is seen as pro Nazi, racist and childish. Both are unsympathetic characters although at the end I did have some feelings of sadness for her. If the rest of their married life followed the pattern seen in this book it was a cold, sterile existence. This is written as historical fiction however the research done by Kate Auspitz is substantial. I appreciated the footnotes, I just wish the numbering of them had been the same colour as the text as I found them hard to see.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It kept me speculating about history, and engrossed in the lives of the characters at the same time. I must admit, I didn't realize it was a novel when I requested it; I'd been searching for a book about Wallis Simpson for a while. Did Wallis Simpson love the Duke of Windsor or was she an agent of the British government tasked with keeping him from the throne? The latter is the thesis of this novel, which is well researched and written on a base of historical data. As the title indicates, the novel is written as a memoir, so there is not a lot of descrption or back-story. The reader is asked to take the narrator at her word, and this adds to the sense of intrigue and speculation. Fascinating story; one that will make you think!
    • 5/5
      This is a “gem” of a book. Clever historical exposition, hidden in the birdseye of a love story disguised as a witty frolic down the fashion runway of haute couture, skulduggery and proper English public schools. Perhaps Thomas Carlyle ("The history of the world is but the biography of great men.") needs a corollary to include the possibility that at least some of the history of the world could be found in a nicely appointed coffee table edition of the fashions of Coco and Cartier, or, How a smartly cut evening gown brought down the Nazi War Machine!!! I absolutely loved the ironic unreliability of a footnoted “point of view.” As to the footnotes, they “dazzled” like “tiny diamonds set into sapphires” against the “Crepe de Chine, a dark blue” of the text.
    • 5/5
      A simply smashing read. The conceit is brilliant: Wallace Simpson was run by MI5, and we learn her story in a Flashman-like discovered memoirs. Simpson herself emerges as an indelible character. Vain, self-absorbed, and hilariously ignorant -- but also sharp-eyed, magnetic and to a degree, tragic. Highly recommended