Back in the day, everyone went to China, some already famous—Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Eugene O’Neill, Langston Hughes, Mary Pickford—and some who later would be famous, such as Wallis Spencer, the woman who, a marriage or two later as Wallis Simpson, caused the King of England to abdicate. Her time in Shanghai was the subject of later scurrilous (and it would appear, entirely fabricated) rumors about pornographic photographs, bordellos and something called the “Shanghai grip” (best left to the imagination).
The ever-prolific Paul French sets about debunking these rumors in his most recent book Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson. The book can be read in one of (at least) two ways: first, for the many fans of the author’s skills as a raconteur, an archetypal example of French’s ability to find the fascinating, somewhat obscure historical vignette, uncover its historical significance and then write a succinct, yet deeply-researched and engaging narrative. The second, one which has been playing out in the British press, is as revealing commentary on the woman, an American no less, who catalyzed what was seen, and is still often seen, as a national trauma.
It is hard to know what to call her: Wallis Spencer as she was at the time, Wallis Simpson as she later became, or the Duchess of Windsor as she was known for, indeed, most of her life; French settles for the informal “Wallis”. His ostensible purpose is to rescue her from the so-called “China dossier”, a collection of rumors, allegations and insinuations used by the British elite “to denigrate her moral character” and “designed specifically to derail her relationship with King Edward VIII.”
This is something French does with great dispatch: he convincingly argues that it was all baseless and had only the most slender and tenuous connections to reality. While Wallis was hardly a nun—she drank, smoked, was an excellent poker player and had at least one acknowledged and technically adulterous affair with the dashing Italian Alberto da Zara—she bore no connection to the fetishized femme fatale and adventuress the stories made her out to be. It is notable that the China dossier didn’t work: Edward evidently paid no attention and still married her.
One can understand if not necessarily appreciate the fascination with which the book has been received (even before formal publication) in the mainstream anglophone press. Wallis still bedevils the Royal Family, but for those less inclined to view the subject through the lens of “The Crown”, French has drawn a convincing and, it must be said, sympathetic portrait of a young woman escaping a difficult marriage to an American naval officer and finding herself in what might, in other circumstances, been considered a “year abroad” in Hong Kong, Shanghai and—mostly—Beijing.
Whether by necessity (after all, nothing as remotely interesting as the activities detailed in the China dossier ever happened) or inclination, French includes a great deal of historical scene-setting; there are few writers who can populate a historical narrative with fully fleshed-out people and almost palpably real settings as French. Despite Wallis being, at the time, rather more ordinary than important or particularly profound, she comes across as a character in a novel: an American everywoman with trials, tribulations, strengths, failings, joys and setbacks. There was nothing to indicate she would, a decade later, topple a king. French seems to have a soft spot for her.
The “aha!” element in Her Lotus Year is not so much French’s refutation of the scandalous stories, but rather his explanation—hardly proven but arguably credible—of how Wallis came to be able to travel from Hong Kong to Canton, and later to Shanghai and Beijing at all (the year in question, 1924-1925, being one of particular political instability) and on a monthly stipend from her soon-to-be ex-husband of just (we are told several times) US$225, not a small sum, but one which didn’t extend to luxury hotels or at least not for long. Wallis, French plausibly posits (as, he notes in the citations, have others), was used by American authorities as a courier of, presumably, documents—anything other than hand-delivery being unreliable and less-than-secure. If Wallis was a case of still waters running deep, it was this, not alleged escapades in Shanghai brothels.
The other character in the book—aside from Wallis’s ne’er-do-well first husband, her charismatic Italian lover, the various people who befriended her in Shanghai and Beijing—is China itself, or at least the China experienced by the relatively privileged Westerners who find themselves in the historical record that French mines so adroitly. This is a China of temples converted into holiday homes, hutong houses doubling as luxury foreign pieds-à-terre, upmarket Western hotels, antique shops, rooftop bars and ballrooms: the stuff of postcards and, one could easily imagine, a possible upcoming movie or TV mini-series.
Those who already appreciate French’s talents as a historical storyteller will find a story to savor. For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Her Lotus Year is an excellent place to start.