The Whalebone Theatre

Starred review from August 29, 2022
The emotional upheaval of the interwar years in England is dramatized afresh in Quinn’s dazzling and imaginative debut. Cristabel Seagrave’s mother dies in childbirth, and Cristabel’s father, Jasper, who remarries when she is three, dies soon after. This leaves Cristabel to be raised by her disinterested stepmother, Rosalind, who then marries Cristabel’s aviation-obsessed uncle Willoughby, Jasper’s brother. In 1928, when Cristabel is 12, she discovers a dead whale washed up on the beach adjoining the decaying Seagrave estate. She turns the whale’s rib cage into the proscenium for a theatre, where she ambitiously stages The Iliad and The Tempest with the help of her half sister Flossie, cousin Digby, loyal kitchen maid Maudie Kitkat, and Taras Kovalsky, a Russian artist. Fourteen years later, Cristabel and Digby’s experiences at playacting will come in handy when they are both parachuted into France on separate espionage missions to help the Resistance during WWII. But will they survive to see the renaissance of the Whalebone Theatre? Thorny, idiosyncratic Cristabel is a formidable first among equals in this expansive cast of memorable eccentrics. Peacetime whimsy gracefully segues into scenes of unbearable tension and heart-wrenching suspense as Cristabel boldly infiltrates Paris on the eve of its liberation. Combining elements of I Capture the Castle, Brideshead Revisited, and Charlotte Gray, this is a reading experience to be long cherished. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc.

June 10, 2024

When a whale washes up on the shores of the English Channel, everybody knows that the creature's corpse belongs to the king. However, Cristabel claims the beast as her own; years later, she transforms the whale's bones into a theater with help from her half-sister, her cousin, a kitchen maid, and a Russian artist. Under the proscenium of the Whalebone Theatre, this unlikely troupe stages annual productions, flourishing and attracting increasingly larger audiences. Performances grind to a halt with the onset of World War II, and soon after Cristabel and her cousin Digby are called upon to act as spies for the British government. Evocative of I Capture the Castle and Charlotte Gray, Quinn's debut novel is ambitious historical fiction brilliantly taking shape as an ode to the escapist power of books, music, and theater. Olivia Vinall's narration breathes life into a cast of eccentric characters, each performed with a measured delivery and emotional identity that helps listeners differentiate the shifting points of view. VERDICT Quinn's debut will cater to spy-novel and WWII-fiction fans and leave listeners eager to see what else the author has in store.--Andy Myers

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