With hindsight, she says that if she had the time again, she would have stayed with George and made a go of it. Pattie identifies George as the gentle but moody husband, and Eric as the whirlwind, turning easily to thunder. Ideally these would belong in anthologies - the big album of their life and times, rather than her own memoir. About half the book is girlie-gossip that Penny should have edited-out ruthlessly, leaving just two sections, one on each marriage, to George Harrison and Eric Clapton. As with so many autobiographies, the opening section on ancestry, birth and early schooling adds nothing to our understanding of the subject, except that she grew up in a dysfunctional family. These memoirs in their standard form - what I call sequential-diary format - could only be of interest to her inner circle. But royal biographers are not programmed to question assumptions, and Penny Junor would be the last person to think round corners in this way. It is not immediately clear why Pattie Boyd should have needed a co-author for her memoirs, except as a creative consultant, to point out that memoirs, as such, might be the wrong medium to celebrate her place in history.
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