Di and I

In a zany and outrageous novel about modern romance, the Princess of Wales falls in love with a Hollywood screenwriter and runs away to McDonald's, with Prince Charles in hot pursuit. By the author of The Dreyfus Affair. 30,000 first printing. Tour.

In this uproarious send-up of British pomp, Hollywood sleaze, royalmania and the institution of marriage, Lefcourt ( The Dreyfuss Affair ; The Deal ) takes readers behind closed doors with Princess Di and the Windsors. Leonard Schecter, a successful Hollywood screenwriter, is drafted to go to London and write a miniseries on "the real Diana," but his assignment changes from profession to passion when he meets the princess and, scandalously, dances with her at a Togolese embassy reception. Spontaneously, he tells her that he is writing an epic poem-- The Dianiad --in her honor. The two soon embark on a romance that has them sneaking all over the realm, one step ahead of the voracious media. Schecter, an all-American wiseass of Polish-Jewish extraction, soon appears at Ascot, Balmoral and Princess Margaret's private poetry reading even as the Windsors attempt to discourage his attentions to Diana and the press reports him luring her off to Hollywood and film stardom. But the couple's real adventure begins when they steal away from Spanish King Juan Carlos's private Bahamian island and go incognito (with princes Wills and Hal) as the Keats family, traveling across America in a minivan and settling in California to run a McDonald's. Lefcourt delivers laughs at every turn in his fast and witty first-person narrative, lampooning both high and tabloid culture with dead-on accuracy while deploying a winning yarn that is both a captivating romantic fantasy and a clever, backhanded homage to the American dream.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Screenwriter and novelist Lefcourt (The Dreyfus Affair, 1992, etc.) returns with a bizarre comedy in which the Princess of Wales and a Hollywood screenwriter fall in love and open a McDonald's restaurant in California. Leonard Schecter, in the midst of an expensive divorce from his wife (The Petitioner), goes to London to research a TV miniseries about Diana, one that will ``deliver the inside of her soul.'' Tabloid reporter Rupert Makepeace gets Schecter invited to a reception at the Togolese Embassy, and the brash American asks Di to dance. The sad princess, who only wants someone to curl up with in front of the telly, takes a shine to Schecter, who claims to be writing an epic poem about her. Danielle Steele-reading Diana is won over by bad poetry and invites Schecter to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and to a weekend at Balmoral with the Queen. The couple eludes the press long enough to fall in love and steal away for romantic afternoons at the Togolese Embassy. Schecter parlays this relationship into a million dollars in book and movie advances. Armed with phony Togolese passports, he and Diana (with Harry and Wills) sneak away from an island vacation with Juan Carlos and Sophia of Spain. The next day, sporting American crew cuts, the boys stand in line with everyone else at Disneyland. The little family settles down in Rancho Cucamonga with a tract house and a fast-food franchise. Di lets her hair revert to its natural mousy brown, gets a nose job, and joins a bowling league. The boys learn American English and work at McDonald's after school. But rest assured, the future king and his brother will eventually return to their dad and their destiny. A fun romp, but the humor is sometimes forced, and the book is ultimately more silly than entertaining. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In his earlier The Deal (LJ 4/1/91), Lefcourt's maverick producer is advised to get the ball over the plate and keep it low. Now that same producer gives a rootless scriptwriter whose life is disintegrating the same advice. Happily, this cryptic chestnut of sports wisdom yields similarly hilarious results. The writer, already fantasizing about Princess Diana, agrees to pen a series about her for TV. Entranced by her charms after the briefest of meetings, he woos her with promises of an epic in rhyming verse. Di, who is besotted after the first couplet, packs up her tiara and her boys and slips away from their handlers to set off on a picaresque adventure along American backroads. Lefcourt deftly skewers the egregious shills and panderers of the celebrity stratum and those who aspire to that status. Himself an Emmy AwardR-winning screenwriter and producer, Lefcourt gives new meaning to "up close and personal" by thwacking royals and nonroyals alike with a vigor that even Punch and Judy would envy. A perfectly literary antidote to much of the tabloidese found in supermarkets and on television, this comedy belongs in most libraries.
Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.