What if Princess Diana hadn’t died? What if the tragedy in the Alma Tunnel never happened, and she were still alive today? Where would she be, and what would she be doing? Untold Story takes the life of the world’s most famous woman as a point of departure, imagining a future and examining the nature of celebrity, the meaning of identity, and the need to find one’s place in the world.
John Crace's Digested Read | The Guardian
Reviews
The Financial Times
Suzi Feay
“With a royal wedding only weeks away, publication of this novel could seem like a shoddy cash-in, but it is a thoughtful, compassionate and utterly untrashy piece of work. It is also, in the last third especially, a suspenseful and gripping read.”
01/04/2011
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The Observer
Tibor Fischer
“… this isn't a Dostoevskian exploration of the depths of the human soul or an effort to stretch the remit of the novel. But then it isn't striving to do those things; it's what Graham Greene termed an "entertainment" … Monica Ali is shaping up to be the Fay Weldon of her generation, producing the publishers' delight, classy commercial fiction ...”
03/04/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Philip Womack
“The most important question is whether Ali has done anything to add to our understanding of this fragile creature who rocked an ancient royal house. The answer is not really ... Untold Story is a superior thriller. Enjoyable, yes. In bad taste, maybe. Incisive fiction, no.”
08/04/2011
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The Times
Janice Turner
“Untold Story is well paced, even tense when the princess’s pursuit by a nosey paparazzo gathers momentum, but it is hard to relax into this world. Constantly the mind measures the plot against probability: would the Princess having only a nose job be enough to disguise her identity? If her millions were moved into secret accounts would there not be a money trail back to the Palace? Is it tasteless to exhume her from her Althrop lake island? Arguably, but such is the Princess’s abiding allure that many will relish this book, thankful to have her back.”
09/04/2011
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The Guardian
Joanna Briscoe
“Curtis Sittenfeld achieved a balance of fact and fiction with American Wife, about Laura Bush. Taking on an icon of Diana proportions is more challenging: with the highly familiar history welded to an invented tale, it's hard for the reader to let go and wallow in the narrative, and the novel comes dangerously close to painting itself into a corner. Unremittingly silly yet containing real pace, this is an ill-advised, debatably insensitive — indeed, almost unworkable — project, skilfully executed.”
02/04/2011
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The Independent
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
“... I fully defend Ali's choice of subject and tone, populist and accessible: a bold departure for a critically acclaimed writer ... Sadly, the book largely fails to keep its promise.”
01/04/2011
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The Daily Mail
Michael Arditti
“Ali, who seems determined neither to challenge nor to offend, adds nothing to the overworked Diana myth or to our picture of small-town America. This story, all the more depressing for being by the esteemed author of Brick Lane, is one that should have remained untold.”
31/03/2011
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The Evening Standard
Sarah Sands
“The fatal flaw in this novel is one of taste, which is somehow made worse because Ali is a distinguished novelist rather than a workaday hack ... As it is, she has written a reliable page turner which I hope is a commercial success for her ... But it is hard to take the literary high ground after a book like this.”
24/03/2011
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The Sunday Times
Daisy Goodwin
“Unfortunately, Monica Ali lacks the star power to turn such a great hook into a page-turning read ... It is a book you could treasure for insights such as, “All the true icons die young, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly,” or for statements such as, “ I was too afraid to die, Lawrence, now I don’t want to be too afraid to live,” or you could decide that it was time to leave Princess Diana to rest in peace. This book is not what she would have wanted.”
27/03/2011
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The Spectator
Charlotte Moore
“In writing Untold Story, Monica Ali has made a serious mistake ... It’s a queasy failure of moral and literary imagination. Don’t buy it.”
16/04/2011
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The Daily Express
Virginia Blackburn
“It is hard to know where to start with what is wrong with this book … This isn’t just bad: it’s career-threateningly awful and while established authors (Martin Amis) can just about get away with a stinker without destroying their reputations, this is only Monica Ali’s third novel.”
03/04/2011
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The New Statesman
Leo Robson
“The reliance on Diana's facts prevents Untold Story from engaging as an autonomous account of a runaway princess trying to forge a civilian existence, but the recourse to invention prevents it from functioning as a work of speculative history like Muriel Spark's novel about Lord Lucan, Aiding and Abetting, or Gordon Burn's Alma Cogan ... [A] bewildering novel, which even Diana-worshippers will surely find crass.”
07/04/2011
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