{"product_id":"darkness-of-wallis-simpson-book-tremain-rose-9781860560323","title":"Darkness of Wallis Simpson","description":"Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American woman for whom Edward Vlll abdicated in 1936, ended her life (as the Duchess of Windsor) as the prisoner of her lawyer who would not allow anyone - friend, foe or journalist - to visit her in her Paris flat. Rose Tremain takes this true story and transforms it into an imaginative and ironic fiction. Her thesis is that Wallis, gaga and bed-ridden, has forgotten the king who gave up an empire for love of her. This superb story plays with the selectiveness of memory: why does Wallis recall the seemingly unimportant, while forgetting the glory days of her notoriety? She can remember her first two husbands - one a bit of a brute, the other very boring - but not the world-famous third one. The other stories in this magnificent collection range over a variety of themes, equally original and unexpected. An East German border guard, redundant after the Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, imagines that he might still have a purpose inlife: he tries to reach Russia by bicycling across the hostile wastes of Poland. A jilted man gets his revenge. A baby grows wings. Acharacter in an Impressionist painting escapes from his 'frame' - or does he? And there's a Christmas story set in a seedy hotel -","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516300108049,"sku":"GOR001418852","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49851180220689,"sku":"CIN1860560326G","price":7.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50127786606865,"sku":"CIN1860560326A","price":7.04,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51092218872081,"sku":"GOR001286370","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52963886924049,"sku":"CIN1860560326VG","price":5.83,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1860560326.jpg?v=1751380190","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/darkness-of-wallis-simpson-book-tremain-rose-9781860560323","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}