Biography - General & Miscellaneous, Lesbian Biographies, Curiosities and Wonders

The Queen of Whale Cay

Name: The Queen of Whale Cay
Author: Kate Summerscale
ISBN: 9780708990797

by Kate Summerscale

Write a review

Overview

When Marion "Joe" Carstairs died in 1993 at the age of ninety-three, she was largely forgotten. During the 1920s she held the world record as the fastest female speedboat racer. But as journalist Kate Summerscale discovered, when researching an obituary for the Daily Telegraph, Carstairs was also a notorious cross-dresser who favored women and smoked cheroots. Supremely self-confident, she inherited a Standard Oil fortune and knew how to spend her money—on fast boats and cars, female lovers, and a Caribbean island, Whale Cay, where she reigned over a colony of Bahamians. There, far from her bohemian past in London and Paris, she hosted a succession of girlfriends and celebrities, including Marlene Dietrich and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Through it all, she remained devoted to Lord Tod Wadley, a little doll who became her bosom companion. Already a bestseller in England, The Queen of Whale Cay is a marvelous portrait of one of the twentieth century's great eccentrics.

Synopsis

Carstairs was reknowned in the 1920s as an "invert" who smoked cheroots and dressed as a man. She was born in a sumptuous Mayfair mansion in 1900, was heiress to the Standard Oil fortune and was the fastest female speedboat racer in the world. In 1934 she disappeared to embark on a course ambitious and bizarre - she bought an island in the West Indies - Whale Cay - and created her own kingdom, founding and ruling the colony of 500 black Bahamians. She entertained a series of glamourous girlfriends, Duchesses and priests, although she reserved her greatest love for her boats, her cars and her only lifelong male companion, her doll, Lord Tod Wadley. When Carstairs died in 1993, aged 93, she was all but forgotten. Kate Sumerscale was assigned to write her obituary for "The Daily Telegraph", and determined afterwards to find out more. This biography is the result of her quest.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Kirkus Reviews

In this superbly written biography, Summerscale brings to life the extraordinary and eccentric "Joe" Carstairs. A London Times bestseller and already nominated for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Prize, this volume takes empathetic hold of an enterprising, cross-dressing woman bent on devouring the world whole. Marion "Joe" Carstairs was heiress to the Standard Oil fortune and clearly predestined to eccentricity. Her childhood was emotionally arid. Her mother early succumbed to men, drink, and drugs. Marion was by nature a provocateur and lived to challenge the sexual morals of her day. By the 1920s she had seen the battlefield and the barroom, found her identity as a heavy-smoking, tattooed lesbian, distinguished herself as a record-breaking speedboat racer, and become the self-fashioned ruler of Whale Cay, a small Bahamian island she purchased with her considerable personal fortune. Any one of these might have made her unique; the combination made her positively fascinating. In a life "powered by her money, Joe lifted herself clear of censure by dint of nerve and speed." She lived and loved relentlessly, visibly, and famously. (The Windsors, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich were but a few of her cohorts.) But somewhere within was a heart the beat only for Lord Tod Wadley, a leather-faced, Steiff doll of a man to whom she was unendingly devoted. Their personalities were bizarrely entwined. Ultimately, Carstairsþs lust for privacy, and for control, was so great that it threatened to consume her. The dazzling and enigmatic life she led soon faded from view. Not until Summerscale, obituaries editor of the Daily Telegraph at the time of Carstairs's death in 1993, setout to research anomalies in the sketchy details of her life did it all come back. Stylistically restrained and well paced, this unforgettable tale of one woman's raw hunger for immortality needed no more than this eloquent telling to lift clear off the page. Captivating fun. (44 b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour)