Jerramy Fine's "Someday My Prince Will Come"
Review: Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine
(Buy it at Amazon.com)
Anyone reading a royal blog obviously has an interest in the lives of the British royal family. Some readers may be fascinated by the legal and constitutional roles of the royals in the British realm; others may be more intrigued by the personal lives and loves of kings, queens, princes, princesses, and other nobles. Some may even entertain fantasies of meeting a prince or a princess, falling in love, and becoming a member of the royal family with all its gems, castles, pomp, and tradition.
But how many royal watchers actually try to make that dream a reality? One, an American woman named Jerramy Fine, not only attempted to snag her prince but also penned a book about her adventures: Someday My Prince Will Come: True Adventures of a Wannabe Princess.
Here’s the gist of the story: Fine, a small-town American girl, with hippie parents, dreams of marrying a prince and living an upper-class lifestyle in England. At a young age, she discovers that Queen Elizabeth’s eldest grandchild, Peter Phillips, is just about her age, and she sets her sights on marrying her “prince” — quotation marks because, of course, as the son of the Princess Royal, Peter Phillips does not have a title. Improbably, she makes it to Britain, and after some major pitfalls, she actually does encounter her royal crush.
We all know the end of the story, of course — Peter Phillips married Canadian Autumn Kelly this May in a family ceremony at Windsor Castle’s St. George’s Chapel. Peter and his new bride earned the ire of the press when they chose to sell exclusive photos of their wedding to Hello! magazine for a tidy sum of money, something no member of the royal family had previously done. The newly married pair has recently moved to Hong Kong, where Peter has taken a job with a bank.
But Fine’s adventures through the world of British royalty are amusing even though many will know the ending before even cracking the spine of the memoir, and there are plenty of reasons to go along with her on her journey from the American west to the streets of London even if we know that her dreams to become a princess did not come true.
Fine takes her readers along on a global adventure, from the halls of Parliament to the pubs of Oxford, from palaces in India to farms in Colorado, and from a dorm room in New York to the very steps of Buckingham Palace. When she imagines how her hijinks at one party full of aristos might be reported by Tatler, she manages to capture the amusing tone of much of the entire book:
Unknown American social climber and Grace Kelly wanna-be shoves The Honourable Something Something-Something out of a windmill window as society birthday party spins dangerously out of control….
Along with its wacky anecdotes, the book also contains some moments of more serious reflection. Appropriately for today, the eleventh anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, Fine’s book also touches frequently on her admiration for the late Princess. Her interest in Diana is a part of her larger feeling of personal connection to the royals, and she describes her emotions following Diana’s unexpected death in 1997 in a way that will surely feel familiar to many royal watchers.
As a fellow American who loves Britain and is very interested in the lives of the royal family, I could certainly relate to Fine’s thoughts and feelings at many points in her narrative. I was sometimes a little disappointed that those pro-English sentiments led to anti-American generalizations. Her absolute admiration for Britain often leads her throughout the book to dismiss the good qualities of the Americans around her. That point is reinforced when she repeatedly notes that the British men she hobnobs with while studying abroad in England consider her to be the only decent American they’ve ever met.
Such opinions are likely symptomatic of the upper-class environment that Fine sought while living in Britain, of course, where prejudice against Americans is often de rigueur. And Fine does learn upon moving to London that reality and dreams don’t always match up. She has to deal with less-than-perfect living conditions, soaring exchange rates, immigration crises, and neurotic flatmates. The trials and tribulations she endures while living as an expat in the UK make for some of the most entertaining sections of the book.
When the scene switches from the follies of everyday life in London to the traditional world of royalty, Fine has to cope with the challenge of bringing those less familiar with the monarchy into the fray. She deals with some of the more specific details about the monarchy by using footnotes throughout her memoir as a reference tool. Some of these asides were interesting, but often I felt that the book might have read more smoothly if the information was incorporated directly into the text.
Overall, the book is an enjoyable read, especially for those royal watchers looking for a bit of fun amidst the sometimes weighty tomes in the royal library. The book is at times funny, touching, cringe-inducing, frustrating, honest, and charming. Fine’s writing style is friendly and engaging, and that makes for a smooth and comfortable read. As the book builds toward its expected climax, the royal watcher will delight in glimpsing familiar royal figures, including Princess Anne and the Duchess of York, through Fine’s eyes. But it is that final moment — the improbable meeting with Peter Phillips himself — that is the biggest payoff for the reader, and it certainly is worth waiting for.
Review originally published on Sunday, August 31, 2008, at Watching the Windsors.
Buy Someday My Prince Will Come by Jerramy Fine at Amazon.com!
© 2008 The Royal Reader
