Residents in Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s adoptive hometown in California have largely ignored his memoir with one proclaiming “Didn’t read it, will not read it.” On the day Spare was released in the States the owner of the Tecolote bookshop in Montecito said she did not sell a single copy.
This was of course the day after a massive storm had begun to wreak havoc on California, with flooding across the state and residents in the wealthy hillside community order to evacuate.
But even since that day, now things have calmed down and people are back in their homes, bookshop owner Mary Sheldon says she has only shifted around 30 copies.
Asked for her thoughts on Harry’s memoir and the controversies surrounding it, Ms Sheldon said: “It’s a book.
“He took time to gather his thoughts and wanted to publish it, so I am here to sell it.
“I think most people up here think of it as a soap opera.”
The Guardian reports that the lack of interest in Spare in Montecito could be because the town of around 10,000 people respects the privacy of celebrities that live there, who include Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom.
Montecito Trails Foundation president, Ashlee Mayfield, said one of the foundation’s board members bumped into the Duke of Sussex in the mountains and the prince helped him move a tree that had fallen on to the trail.
She said: “I think he really wants to be a normal guy in town.”
And she says she isn’t surprised residents don’t really speak out about the Sussexes, adding that the extreme weather of the past few years has reinforced resistance to the celebrity publicity machine that many are trying to escape by living in Montecito.
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Montecito’s most celebrated author TC Boyle gave his opinion on Spare by simply saying: “Didn’t read it, will not read it.”
British expat and royal expert Richard Mineards, who writes for a Montecito newspaper, has read the book from cover to cover.
He said: “I think the whole thing is reprehensible.
“It is doing enormous harm not only to the Royal Family but to his own family, he and his wife… If he really does want to reconcile with his family in due course, why does he keep throwing bombs at them? Where do they go from here?”
