‘People are excited about reading it’: Harry and Meghan’s neighbours await release of prince’s book
In Montecito, the super wealthy enclave in California which Prince Harry and Meghan have made their adopted home, the local bookshop has put in a big order for copies of his autobiography.
“I was excited when I found out it was coming,” says Mary Sheldon, part-owner of Tecolote bookshop. “I called my publisher and told him to put in an order, it’s one of the books we order by the carton, people are definitely excited about reading it here.”
Tecolote has been a fixture in Montecito for almost a century, now located in the “upper village” which is the focal point for community life, with its post office, estate agent and grocery shop.
Montecito is a two-hour drive up the coast from Los Angeles, nestled between the Santa Ynez mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
For decades now, celebrities have migrated here from Hollywood, craving the slower pace of life and privacy it offers.
Oprah Winfrey, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ellen DeGeneres all have multi-million dollar estates in the narrow lanes which wind up the hillside. Harry and Meghan’s $15m home is considered mid-range for the area.
“We’re used to having celebrities, but Harry and Meghan are something different,” says Ms Sheldon. “I think people are interested in the book because of the family dynamics and comparing the Royal Family to their family.
“They’re not really interested in the politics of it.”
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At the coffee shop, the smell of eucalyptus trees wafts through the patio where people are eating breakfast.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are rarely seen out in public here these days and there is less of feverish interest in their Netflix documentary series and various media interviews than in the UK.
“My friends turn their nose up at it all,” one woman, a former TV executive living in Montecito, tells me.
“They may have been paid $100m by Netflix but they have all their production staff to pay and their company, so an element of all this will be them thinking ‘what can we sell’.”
Prince Harry has done interviews with two major US TV channels to promote his book.
He has been questioned about why he is reigniting a war with the Royal Family when he and Meghan claim to have moved to this exclusive corner of California to escape the spotlight.
He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “Every single time I’ve tried to do this privately there have been briefing and leakings. Our family motto is ‘never complain, never explain’. It’s just a motto it doesn’t really hold.”
Polls for American news organisations have indicated there is more sympathy for Harry and Meghan’s plight with the US public than the UK.
“I certainly think there are most positive reactions in the states to the United Kingdom,” says Skylar Baker-Jordan, an American media commentator.
“I think Americans look at Prince Harry and see a vulnerable young man who is being emotionally honest – perhaps for the first time in his life – whereas the British tend to see a spoiled rich kid with every privilege life can afford moaning about the gilded cage he’s found himself in.”
Prince Harry is already 5,000 miles from home but the more he reveals about the inner trauma and trials of the institution he was once part of, the further away he grows from his family.
