Review: Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadows of the Crown

I’m an easygoing reader — it’s about the only part of me that is. In the depths of my Type A soul, nestled amongst the worries and the neuroses, there is a part of me that craves nothing more than the safe sanctuary of a good book. I care not for the biggest words, the most complex construct of sentences, or the pedigree of the author. As long as it passes the “can I gleefully read this from a bubble bath” test: we good. 

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadows of the Crown by Anne Glenconner does not disappoint. It feels like the literary equivalent of a Downton Abbey episode, but with more depth. You’ve got the landed aristocracy navigating courtship, marriage, and scandals, dazzling parties, and riveting drama elevated by the mere presence of money and titles. 

Anne* is the daughter of an earl, the wife of a baron, a Maid of Honor at the Queen’s Coronation, and a former Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret. What I love about how this book reads is that you feel you’re having a cuppa with a sassy aunt who has seen it all, done it all, but still puts on a full face of makeup everyday because she’s got standards, deary. It’s written by the type of woman who, if she grew up in the American South, could effortlessly deploy a “bless your heart” without the recipient knowing if they should be taking offense. 

*It almost feels too chummy to call her that, but since I have a snowball’s chance in hell of meeting her and it’s the internet, let’s go crazy.

Anne also has an advantage to other memoirists in that she is not a starlet in her thirties — she has the perspective of time to give an honest (even when uncomfortable) portrait of the people in her life. Wife to an eccentric (richspeak for bizarre) man, close friend to a princess, mother of five, she is a woman who has seen shit. She details her experience with the deaths of two children, the AIDS crisis, her child’s drug abuse, another child’s coma, owning an island with her husband, traveling the world in the employ of the Crown, and more in a very matter-of-fact yet completely vulnerable way. 

Now, of course, there are moments that remind you of the world the author is coming from. A world steeped in privilege and, as my husband would derisively say anytime I watch The Crown, a system propping up a bunch of white people who profited off the backs of those they colonized. I don’t disagree in the least. There’s a lot to unpack here and this is not the most woke book I’ve read. In one choice quote I’ve sent to many friends to highlight the caucasity, a sparse meal is pepped up with a “large dollop of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise to hide the blandness”. [editor’s note: clearly, I’ve been using mayo all wrong all these years if it reduces blandness.]

Having said that, I knew what I was getting into when I ordered the book. It’s best for rainy days, the Sunday blues before work, and times when you’re feeling weighed down by the stress of the world and need a posh escape. Pair with an Earl Grey black tea and Devonshire cream scone, and you’re in for quite the read.

Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadows of the Crown by Anne Glenconner, is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and local booksellers. Published by Hachette Books, 2020. This review contains affiliate links, so if you order your copy from Bookshop.org, we receive a small percentage from that sale.