The Queen of Whale Cay [Hardcover]

“This book is immensely entertaining”
Irish Times 28/3/98

A fascinating biography of the woman champion motorboat racer of the 1920s who in the ’30s bought and became ‘ruler’ of an island in the British West Indies.

’Joe’ Carstairs was born in London in 1900, the daughter of a Scottish colonel and an American heiress. Educated in Connecticut, she returned to Europe in 1916 and drove ambulances for the Women’s Legion in France. She deserted her husband at the church door (marriage was a prerequisite of her coming into her $4million inheritance) and settled in England where she took up racing, established a boat yard at Cowes and won nearly every trophy going. In the 30s she started travelling widely, finally moving to the West Indies where she bought the island of Whale Cay. There she developed the island into a populated community, building everything from roads and schools to lighthouses and churches. Carstairs then suceeded in establishing hegemony over the 500 islanders, controlling not only their sexual morals but also their diet. In 1944 she built a deepwater harbour for the Royal Navy’s use and, without a word to her population, left the island to build warcraft in Florida, where she settled for 40 years, having run a steamship freightline and set up a chain of airports. Kate Summerscale’s brilliant biography brings out of obscurity a woman whose very boldness took her beyond fame and notoriety.

Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead and Oscar Wilde's niece were numbered among her lovers; in the 1920's she was the fastest woman in the world on water; in 1934 she vanished form the headlines by her own choice, bought an island in the Bahamas, and created her own kingdom.

Her name was Marion Barbara Carstairs, though for most of her life she was known by the name of her own choosing – 'Joe'. She was rich by anyone's standards – heiress to the Standard Oil fortune – and her inheritance opened the world to her, fuelled her adventures and her metamorphoses.

On her island, Whale Cay, Carstairs fiercely guarded her privacy and exercised absolute power. She demanded obedience and moral virtue from her people while herself continuing to live exactly as she pleased. And though she entertained actresses, duchesses and priests, she reserved her greatest love for her boats, her cars and the enigmatic Lord Tod Wadley.

Carstairs died in 1993, aged 93. Kate Summerscale was assigned to write her obituary for the 'Daily Telegraph', and determined afterwards to discover more about her life. 'The Queen of Whale Cay' is the stunning, moving result of what she discovered, talking to the men and women who loved Joe Carstairs more than she probably ever knew.

Born in 1965 Kate Summerscale was brought up in Japan, England and Chile. She took a double-first at Oxford, an MA in Journalism from Stanford University, California, and for some years wrote and edited obituaries on the Daily Telegraph. Now, she writes features for the Telegraph.