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The Whalebone Theatre: The instant Sunday Times bestseller

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The second chunk is more looking at the daughter she finds in the household already, and the events of one hoity-toity, plummy summer, where the estate is riddled with the foreign and the potentially lesbian and the bohemian and the bed-swapping arty types, amidst which the girl – Cristabel – decides there are enough bohemian-minded drop-outs to help her present a play. Thus slowly – oh, how cussedly slowly – we get to the title construction finally being mentioned, a third of the way through this lumbering stodge. Oh, and then it becomes a war novel. A dysfunctional, rather unusual family. A large home on the coast. A whale washed up and turned into a theatre. A large cast of characters. A generational saga that takes the reader through the years between the wars, into World War Two and beyond. It’s astonishing to discover that this beguiling story is Joanna Quinn’s first novel . . . If you loved Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet series and Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle you’ll absolutely adore this. It’s touching, enthralling, and superbly written—an extraordinary book that deserves to be read and re-read.” — Independent, #1 Best Overall of “10 Best Books to Read This Summer” Cristabel Seagrave and her half/step-siblings, Flossie and Digby, are largely left to bring themselves up during the inter-war years in a country house in Dorset. Tales of adventure fire their imagination, and when a whale is beached near their home, Cristabel claims it for herself and eventually converts its bones into an outdoor theatre. But as WWII approaches, it becomes clear that none of the trio is comfortable in their allocated role and that war might provide opportunities to forge new identities—as long as they can survive. rating. The title of this book and where it comes from in the story was the intriguing story line for me. That’s because I loved the character of twelve-year-old Christobel Seagrave, an odd and quirky but intuitive girl. When a whale washes up on the beach near to Chilcombe Estate in Dorset 1920’s Christobel plants a flag and claims it as her own, fighting off the idea it belongs to England. With her half siblings Flossie and Digby, they spend their time, creating their own plays and stories. The bones of the whale literally become their theatre, a place where they can dress up and become other people. Soon they are somewhat of a sensation as they present plays for their hamlet to great applause.

How do the pressures of inheritance affect the Seagrave men differently --- from Jasper to Willoughby to Digby? What is inherited, and by whom, by the end of the war, regardless of gender? The story follows the oddly structured Seagrave family, genteel aristocrats with a slowly failing estate and a brood of loosely related siblings who will inherit this mess and have to figure it out. But before they even get a chance to do that, WWII happens and will send them in unexpected directions. It is Taras who encourages Cristabel to cultivate her artistic inclinations and put on a play. This initiates one of the book’s themes of play-acting, which runs right through from Rosalind, valiantly pretending to be a happy wife and mother, to the English agents in the second world war, when a far more serious pretence is required from those parachuted in to occupied France. Quinn hammers this home a little too hard at times – “My new uniform is quite the best costume I’ve ever worn,” Digby writes in 1939 – but it’s a pleasing device. This is a book that will be loved unreasonably and life-long, I believe, like I Capture The Castle. ” —Francis Spufford, author of Light Perpetual 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).Joanna Quinn was born in London and grew up in Dorset, in the southwest of England, where her bestselling debut novel, The Whalebone Theatre, is set. De dreiging van de nakende wereldbrand doet het verhaal helaas stagneren om vervolgens veerkrachtig een vlucht te nemen op het slagveld. Verzet! Moon Squadron! Angst, pijn en foute liefde. Far and away my favourite novel of the year . . . It’s a gorgeous book, following the lives of three half-siblings from the ‘20s and through World War II, the same canvas Kate Atkinson has used to such great effect. Love, grief, and comedy in perfect balance: it’s hard to believe that this accomplished novel comes from a first-timer.” Quinn has a sublime touch: Cristabel and her troupe are unforgettable, as riotous in comedy as they are heart-breaking in tragedy.” —Frances Liardet, author of We Must Be Brave A transporting, irresistible debut novel that takes its heroine, Cristabel Seagrave, from a theatre in the gargantuan cavity of a beached whale into undercover operations during World War II—a story of love, family, bravery, lost innocence, and self-transformation.

This is a story of three children, Cristabel, her half-sister Flossie and Digby, their cousin and cousin/half-brother respectively, who live in a big house in Devon in the 1920s. Charismatic, orphaned Cristabel, is their leader and the centre of their world of play and make-believe; she is strong, self-sufficient, imaginative. The first half of this novel is an engaging, vivid narrative around children and adults (rich, bohemian, intelligent, silly...) which is quite a delight to read. The Whalebone Theatre of the title is constructed before our very eyes - a whale comes to die at the beach and this image of death and regeneration (the dead animal becoming the literal bones of their theatre) is meant to have a resonance throughout the novel.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.

But that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? Either they notice I’m a woman, and they don’t want me because of that, or I have to hope they somehow don’t notice, which leaves me eradicated either way.’ 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. What a lovely read. I have seen it compared to Life After Life which is a very high bar, but it covers a similar period and has a similar feel. It's about three half-siblings growing up in a country estate in the 1920s and 30s. Christabel, Flossie and Digby have a passion for performance and put on annual plays for the neighbourhood in a theatre on their grounds. When WW2 breaks out they all get involved in different ways. Christabel ends up being parachuted into France to undertake clandestine work. During the war, Cristabel and Digby take on personas that are necessary for them to stay alive, and to keep others alive. What satisfaction, and risk, do they derive from doing so? How do they continue to reinvent themselves after the war, even beyond life?Gorgeous . . . Delightful . . . Absolute aces . . . Reading it is like plunging into a tub of clotted cream while (or whilst) enrobed in silk eau-de-Nil beach pajamas . . . Quinn’s imagination and adventuresome spirit are a pleasure to behold, boding more commanding work to come.” — TheNew York Times Destined to become a classic. . .Elegantly writtenandtotally immersive, this is escapism fiction at its very best . . . Quinn’s debut is awonder.” — Daily Mail The Whalebone Theatre has all the makings of a classic. And Cristabel Seagrave is the most gratifying hero. The war scenes often left me breathless: they are as good as you will ever read . . . A tour de force.” —Sarah Winman, author of Still Life Destined to become a classic . . . Elegantly written and totally immersive, Quinn's debut is a wonder Daily Mail Alongside her story are also woven the lives of her half-sister and brother, although the latter is no blood relation. Joanna Quinn gives detailed depictions of their Chilcombe estate, the evacuation of Dunkirk and the Blitz in London to name a few settings as she takes us through the decades. Some of her figurative language is particularly memorable; the London bombings are perceived as ‘…a production set, and the scenery keeps changing. It is a production set, and the cast are here one day, gone the next. Only the sky is lit up, criss-crossed with movie-star searchlights while air raid warnings slide up and down the scale.’

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