You know, I've never taken to the idea that books can be too white, too middle-class and too, well, sort of First World Problem-y. This is the novel to convert many like me, however, and in throwing a historical light on a certain sort of problem, it's even further removed from life as we know it. The first chunk concerns Rosalind, a second and younger wife to a landed gent down in SW England; we discover he lost his first wife, to whom he was perfectly suited, in childbirth, and now, immediately post-World War One, with suitable men low on the ground, Rosalind has had to settle for the lumpen codger. She's there (a) to present him with an heir, if not a spare as well, which she will eventually – oh, how eventually – stumble her way to doing, and (b) for us to see that upper class, society women of the time had surprisingly little autonomy, freedom and self-awareness. Tell us something we didn't know, then. Just absolutely wonderful . . . It is so doggone readable, and you really care about these characters . . . The book just really keeps you reading.”

Beautifully compulsive ... The Whalebone Theatre will feel like a much-loved book even if you're reading it for the first time' Red MagazineWomen take on various responsibilities in the war --- on the field and at home, and yet as Perry says of the female spies, “If we circulate the details of women agents in an effort to find them, it means admitting they were there” (536). How does this reflect the general attitude toward women throughout the timeframe of the novel? How do the main women --- Cristabel, Rosalind, Flossie --- defy being forgotten in the way that establishments might want them to be? What’s remarkable, especially for a first novel, is Quinn’s deft way of depicting this lost world—whether a subsiding seaside aristocracy or a training school for British agents or a Parisian theater in wartime . . . Her vision is so fine and fully realized that it’s hard to imagine her doing anything else—and hard to have to wait to see what that might be.” — Washington Post 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 As exciting as ”The Whalebone Theatre” might sound, this one doesn’t really deliver. It tells a story about a British upper-class family during the WW2. There’s love, loss, spies, war, and of course a whale.

Why do you think the novel is broken into “Acts” as a structural device? How do the novel’s events map onto the typical five-part structure of a Shakespeare play?

I think my issue with the book was that I am not sure what Quinn was trying to convey, exactly. The characters were great, their lives interesting, but it felt a bit scattered, not united by a theme or a specific narrative thread. After a night of thunderstorms, the air is as fresh as clean laundry. The chilly mist...swept away, lifting like stage curtains to reveal the coastline in its spring colours...[Cristabel] discovered a dead whale washed up on the pebbles...[She ] has just turned twelve; there isn't much she doesn't know. She had read nearly all the books in the house...She admires things done in an adept manner...the feeling of being up in front on her own...high on her whale, looking down at Digby and the Veg." The Whalebone Theatre will soon be born. "Their most-loved books have been read so many times...But the worlds contained within the books do not remain between the covers, they seep out and overlay the geography of their lives." I loved the first half of the novel which was an enchanting, vibrant narrative around children and adults with all of their wealth, secrets and desires laid out in the crumbling estate. I was completely engaged in the clean descriptions, the spot-on dialogue and this entranced me completely.

It took Joanna Quinn a decade to finish what is already being talked about as the book of the summer. The Whalebone Theatre is a rich family saga set between the two world wars, spanning Dorset, London and occupied France. It is the sort of book that makes real life dim as you become absorbed in its heartbreaks, love affairs and revelations. A debut novel this ambitious doesn’t come along often. What makes it even rarer is that its author, a 46-year-old single mum living in Dorset, had almost given up hope that it would be published. 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.

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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. 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.