The Whalebone Theatre: The instant Sunday Times bestseller

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Just absolutely wonderful . . . It is so doggone readable, and you really care about these characters . . . The book just really keeps you reading.”

What do we learn about Cristabel, from the time she is a child, that indicates her affinity for Shakespeare? Consider her reflection: “Cristabel has always wanted her life to be a story…. Uncle Willoughby was the first to insist upon the importance of her own behaviour and the first to suggest that she could leave an impression on the world, which meant that she existed” (426). Wow! Some of my book club friends were finding this book boring, so I approached it with trepidation. I needn’t have. I loved every moment of this dreamily-written book.The writing itself will enchant you and slow down your reading just to breathe in and feel the descriptive narrations. I found myself closing my eyes and envisioning the places Quinn was creating. Every single word was exactly right and the visual imagery she is able to draw with words is astounding. There are moments when we get a glimpse of something more invigorating. Digby has a heart-to-heart with an officer who, after a pause, tells him: “I have a friend. A radio operator. He’s stationed up in Orkney. I miss him very much.” For a brief moment, a door opens and we get a spark of the electricity Sarah Waters generated in her wartime novel, The Night Watch. But here, Digby is flummoxed and Quinn lets the tension dissolve into nothing. Similarly, a certain tendresse between one of her characters and a German PoW echoes the febrile relationship in Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française, but doesn’t attain its perilous intensity.

Reviewers might call this novel 'sweeping': the war-time postcards, letters and diaries are effective, intensely moving, as vigorous and energetic as Cristabel, Flossie, and Digby’s dialogue elsewhere, if not more forcefully so. They sail the reader through action at such a snappy pace. However, Quinn never pushes the idea far enough to make the reader catch her breath – and that’s the weakness of the novel, which despite its engaging storytelling cannot match the likes of models such as Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles or Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Quinn simply doesn’t take enough risks. She has her characters narrate in turn, which means they have no secrets from us; she makes them likable, with few hidden resentments or schemes. The older generation don’t alter as they age, dropping out of the narrative as they cease to be interesting. The younger ones are better treated in that they mature and undergo life-altering challenges; but the main driver of tension in their story comes from historical events. This book isn't going to be for everyone, but if you have put it on your TBR list, you should bump it to the top. Seriously. Find a time when you have the time and read this book and you'll remember why you fell in love with reading. Debut book? I'm astounded. Because if this is what Joanna Quinn does the first time out, I can only imagine what else she's got in the wings. Alas, I was not convinced by the second, the adult WW2, narrative to the same extend. And whilst the childhood story was for me compelling and original, the siblings' WW2 exploits didn't engage me or presented me with an original perspective - I had "already read" so to speak, similar stories and was impatient about developments, which were without exception predictable - ie I predicted what was going to happen, and it did happen. Whilst the first part was detailed enough to give you a textured panorama, the adult part was far more general, even generic. It was far too long for me, I didn't care what happened to the characters.This book is possibly one of the most atmospheric I've read in a long time. It is beautifully written. The prose is LYRICAL. But if you expect to read it in a weekend, you're going to find it impossible for three reasons. On atmospherics, “The Whalebone Theatre” is absolute aces, to borrow the patois of the Americans who drop in for cultural contrast, new-moneyed and loud. Reading it is like plunging into a tub of clotted cream while (or whilst) enrobed in silk eau-de-Nil beach pajamas. You’ll immediately want to change your font to Garamond and start saying things like “Toodle-pip, darlings!” The weather, whether misty or stormy, dappling sunshine or “moonlight falling through the window like an invitation,” is consistently impressive.