Pas helemaal op het einde - na 500 bladzijden - heeft Quinn je hélemaal te pakken, maar dan is het helaas te laat.

Shimmeringly if sometimes a little preciously, Quinn depicts the strange, resourceful magic that can be conjured by a cluster of children when they’re neglected by selfish adults. Overseen by a vague French governess, they educate themselves with books stolen from the study, by eavesdropping from cloakrooms on drunken dinner parties and by running around with young “savages” they encounter scuttling naked around the shore, the progeny of Taras, a daring Russian artist. 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. Destined to become a classic . . . Elegantly written and totally immersive, Quinn's debut is a wonder Daily Mail 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. Like Red Bull, The Whalebone Theatre gives you wings. You fly from 1919 to 1945, from a dusty old house in Dorset where debutantes dance underneath stuffed deer heads to the oily sea off Dunkirk, where German Stukas whizz over fishing boats. Now we’re in a velvety West End theatre watching Diaghilev’s dancers leap and spin; now we’re plunging through the moonlight over occupied France as a parachute unfurls silently above a secret agent like a big white lily.Rosalind had no love for her firstborn, a daughter. "... it looks like a vegetable...but at least she will have a film star name...Florence." An heir was what everyone wanted...boys could drive motors...be interested in snails, maps and warfare. Finally, a son and heir...Digby. 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. But his mind seemed unable to keep company with the fact he was dead. It was desperate, laughable, and in the face of such nonsense, his mind kept jumping up and scampering off to its favourite haunts. Even as he was walking behind his coffin with little Cristabel holding his hand, he was trying to remember the name of a lissom Italian actress he’d met in Covent Garden. In an astonishing debut, Quinn creates an enchanting world and a cast of thoroughly endearing characters whom readers will be sorry to leave behind . . . A genre-bending delight.” — Booklist (starred)

This is the story of a whale that washes up on a beach, whose bones are claimed by a twelve-year-old girl with big ambitions and an even bigger imagination. An unwanted orphan who grows into an unmarriageable young woman, fiercely determined to do things differently. 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. What do we learn about Cristabel and Digby through their letters, sent and unsent? What’s unique about their relationship, including Cristabel’s notion that she “willed [him] into being” (524)? The arrival of the whalebones at Chilcombe is an event in and of itself. What is the significance of taking something that technically “belongs to the king” (197)? Did the transformation of the theatre into a garden during the war actually change anything about what the theatre is being used for by the family? But far away from the big house, as the children grow to adulthood, another story has been unfolding in the wings. And when the war finally takes centre stage, the siblings find themselves cast, unrehearsed, into roles they never expected to play.Playful, inventive, sharp, funny, The Whalebone Theatre offers the sort of reading experience that is remarkably rare, even for those of us whose happiest hours are spent with books: sheer, undiluted delight from start to finish . . . It breathes fresh, bracing air into the lungs of the multi-generational saga—and the very form of the novel itself . . . Most importantly of all, perhaps, Quinn gives us Cristabel, the sort of intelligent heroine that has been sorely missing from every other classic since Middlemarch . . . It’s impossible not to be charmed by this book.” —Susan Elderkin, author of Voices Destined to become a classic. . .Elegantly writtenandtotally immersive, this is escapism fiction at its very best . . . Quinn’s debut is awonder.” — Daily Mail Beautifully compulsive ... The Whalebone Theatre will feel like a much-loved book even if you're reading it for the first time' Red Magazine 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 Geweldige titel, prachtig uitgegeven en een prikkelende premisse: 'Het Walvistheater' had zomaar een meesterwerk kunnen zijn en in sommige hoofdstukken ís het dat ook.