The Queen of Whale Cay

View other editions of The Queen of Whale Cay.
View books by Kate Summerscale.

Stunning - and no review can do it justice - Rated
What a wonderful delightful surprise this book has been. The Queen of Whale Cay - Joe - was brave, fiercely loyal and completely unique. There never has and never will be anyone like her. A packed life that inspires you to do more with your own. A loyalty to friends that reminds you to look up the ones you've left behind. This book brings Joe's past to life with scenes and stories you could never have imagined. And when I watch old movies from now on I'll recall the scenes from this book that were happening at the same time. For example Joe's encounters with Marlene Dietrich make me want to watch her (YouTube - that scene from Morocco 1930)movies again. For example scenes from World War 1 - Joe was driving an Ambulance aged just 16. For example Oscar Wildes niece - Dolly Wilde - Joe encountered her at 17 in Paris.

No review can do justice to the book. You'll just have to get it and see.

Weird, but wonderful - Rated
Joe Carstairs was certainly eccentric, but also very talented. I wonder if these days she would be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and offered some kind of treatment? She seemed to deny totally her feminity, dressing as a male, and affecting a pipe - and having sailor style tattoos, too. Of course, being eccentric is easier when your grandfather was a business partner of Rockefeller and made his fortune from oil - which you then inherited a large slice of. I was intrigued by the author's insight into the craze for "boyishness" in the 1920s, and also I learned something I didn't know about the First World War - the role of Chinese labourers in the trenches and the aftermath. The louche behaviour and extravagant lifestyle was tempered by the work that Carstairs undertook both as motor boat racer but also chauffeuse, so I did admire her, although I later became bemused - the obsession with Lord Tod Wadley, a doll, was freaky.

After leaving the Caribbean, the book becomes very sketchy, which is a shame, and also rather sad, as it seems to indicate some kind of general decline in the energy and fortunes of this remarkable woman.

A slim biography, but a very entertaining one.

lord tod wadleys alter ego - Rated
The life of "Joe"Carstairs is a real journey of a biography,from America in the 1890s,Paris and London in the 20's and crucially the Bahamas in the40's.Joe led a truly fast life,always accompanied by her alter ego Lord Tod Wadley.This is a fantastic read,and a far from "run of the mill"biography.What started out as an obituary in The Daily Telegraph turned into something very special.

Wadd a wonderful read! - Rated
An excellent story of weird, wonderful and quite frankly warped behaviour - an obsession with a doll dressed in flying jackets and matelot outfits could not be made up - a terrific yet terrifying account of maverick behaviour from a lady who just could not and would not conform!

scandalous, revealing, charming: a most unlikely life - Rated
Born in the same year as the Queen Mother (1900) the life of Marion Barbara ("Joe") Carstairs took a very different course. A wonderful and beautifully written account of an outrageous twentieth century personality. The story moves from the battlefields of World War I to an island paradise in the Bahamas via the louche and fast society of London in the Twenties. Those met on the way include Tallulah Bankhead, Dolly Wilde, Marlene Dietrich and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.