Synopses & Reviews
Joe Carstairs was renowned in the 1920s as an 'invert' who smoked cheroots and dressed as a man. She was an heiress to the Standard Oil fortune and the world's fastest female speedboat racer. In 1934, she bought an island in the West Indies and created her own kingdom. She exercised absolute power over a colony of five hundred black Bahamians, demanding obedience and moral virtue while herself continuing to live as she pleased. She entertained actresses, duchesses and priests, but reserved her greatest love for her boats, her cars and the enigmatic Lord Tod Wadley. When Carstairs died in 1993, aged 93, she was all but forgotten.