Review: The Queen’s Wife

The sun is setting and a light cool air floats through the open window of my room. I’m lying on my bed and close The Queen’s Wife, the book I’ve been reading these last few weeks which has kept me company during my commute to and from work – across Ōwairaka and Sandringham, through to Kingsland and deep into Tāmaki Makaurau.

As I close the book I feel as though credits of a film drop down in front of me – with the cool air, sunset, song of crickets and light shower ushering the book’s end. Something has shifted. There is a certain lightness I haven’t known in a long time and I begin to think that maybe words put things back in balance, when given the space and time, like some deep tissue work. I can only imagine how it felt to have written it – a relief?

I open Instagram and view all the stories of friends attending events at Auckland’s Pride Festival. Rainbow flags and drag, signs that read: ‘trans health care saves lives,’ ‘love your queer kids just as they are,’ ‘queer as in honour Te Tiriti.’ Perhaps I could’ve joined but I feel content with my copy of Joanne Drayton’s memoir The Queen’s Wife, thinking perhaps this is how I’m celebrating Pride. Then, I think, like leaving the cinema, there is no one alongside me to ask so what did you think about that? Suddenly I realise I’m alone and feel as if I’ve returned from some odyssey that is Joanne Drayton’s life, alongside her partner Sue Marshall. 

Rewind three or so weeks and I’m standing on the mezzanine of Unity Books Auckland, carrying a box of books from storage. I’m about to go down the stairs to the shop floor when I give the proofs a quick once over. Spines are stacked one on top of another and I spot The Queen’s Wife, quick to register this is a nine title and that there is perhaps something queer about it – Queen’s Wife – like I’m working through some riddle. I read the writer’s name, Joanne Drayton. My mouth drops open – Joanne Drayton? Box in hands, I lower it down in front of my feet and pick up the book. Perhaps, in a similar way to Drayton, who upon discovering the Isle of Lewis Chess set felt an immediate connection, I was also struck my something ‘spiritual’ or ‘meditative,’ if those are the right words, when I spotted The Queen’s Wife – like the exterior of a reliquary that engages the viewer with what’s within – a game in itself. 

On the cover are two figures – two chess pieces – queens. A red Māori queen looks out towards me, alongside a queen in white, who appears a bit stricken or sleep deprived, as if from the time of Vikings or something medieval. The figures complement each other and you sense there is a shared history between the two. The red queen appears assured and confident, whereas the white queen looks as if to say, ‘we’re in a bit of a mess, aren’t we?’ To which the red queen sighs, ‘I warned you… but it will be okay.’

The thought makes me chuckle and as you read Drayton’s memoir you learn quickly this is a very real dynamic between the two queens, Drayton and Marshall. The two speak to each other, as if telepathically, but through a bit of imagination I think I understand what they say. I carry the proof under my arm. I pop the book into my bag – as if I myself have just pinched a precious chess piece. 

Aside from a little spiel that reads like some close reading text, The Queen’s Wife is unlike anything I’ve read. Sure, it’s a memoir but it pushes against the normative structures and account of one’s life in a refreshing way – it’s experimental, novel and undeniably queer – perfectly matching its subject matter. Though, when I come to describe what The Queen’s Wife is about, I struggle to do it justice – it’s a love story, an historical epic, a journey through time, a story of identity, whakapapa, heritage, as well as queer and lesbian sexuality – each element like the jewel of a reliquary, each singular and speaking to a whole. Like a game, The Queen’s Wife is also shadowed by moves that threatened to cost Drayton and Marshall their children, family, friends and livelihoods. This is a book that defies a singular description. There are parts that sing out to you and others that quietly reverberate throughout. Embrace it because you’re in for a treat. 

This may have been Drayton’s most challenging project yet, for the telescope she has so superbly cast in her previous writing on the lives of others, such as Edith Collier, Frances Hodgkins, Ngaio Marsh and Anne Perry, has turned inward and, naturally, there is a certain kind of vulnerability in that. The incredible biographer confronts herself and what follows is beautiful, heart-breaking, incredibly funny and deeply cathartic. Perhaps its format reflects a search for a narrative and voice that for so long were withheld from Drayton and Marshall. 

But if there is one thing I’ve learnt in life – wisdom of a 27 year old! – is that people around you lead extraordinary lives. You never know the trials and tribulations a person has endured nor the joy they have experienced. There are stories all around you – unknown, right under your nose – which is reinforced upon reading The Queen’s Wife. 

It is also something I learnt when I met Joanne Drayton more than six years ago – while working at Whitcoulls – and explains a wish to uncover more of her story. Drayton was a customer, purchasing ink cartridges for her favourite fountain pen and buying a copy of a magazine that published an interview with her in that week’s issue. I remember her being one of the kindest people I met at work. Upon meeting her, I knew she had a story (everyone does) but there was just something, so when I purchased the magazine and read up on everything published online, I was left with a long lasting impression and remember feeling a certain kind of sorrow upon learning more about her – that she had been married, as had Marshall, that they had children and they fell in love. It sounds innocent enough but they were caught up in bitter and nasty court dealings that ensnared them and their children. So, I embrace the publication of The Queen’s Wife with celebration and open arms, for this is a story people ought to know.

The first chapter opens with an all-encompassing theme: life is a game of chess and on the board heterosexuality reigns supreme. Throw in two queens and game over. Yet, I would like to explore another ‘game’ I discovered while reading her book – something intimate and pure – that was (and continues in many ways) to be overshadowed and intimidated by the chess-like moves that make society for marginalised folks so treacherous to navigate and inhabit. When discovering the ‘game’ that Drayton and Marshall played, I thought what cruelty it is to undermine its existence.  I think this can be conveyed by a slight appropriation of Ali Smith’s introduction to Fair Play by Tove Jansson, the wonderful artist and writer behind the beloved Moomins:

So, what happens when Joanne Drayton turns her attention to her own favourite subjects, love and work, in this memoir about two women, two queens, lifelong partners, friends, soul mates and lovers? Expect something philosophically calm – and discreetly radical. 

Perhaps it is the inner romantic in me but I could not get the resemblance of Fair Play out of my mind, which Jansson described as a novel of, ‘happy tales about two women who share a life of work, delight and consternation… They manage to play the game successfully with patience and, of course, a great deal of love.’  The same can be said for the relationship between Drayton and Marshall, whose game was all fair and full of play – yet some faithful chess players did not like that one bit. 

The Queen’s Wife will connect and inspire readers in different ways. Some will love the threads of identity and heritage, others will coil themselves into a knot over the court and law accounts, some will stroll through it as if walking through an art gallery – different pieces will draw you in, you will contemplate – and others will feel as if they’ve lumbered through a storm.  I fell in love with the intimate game they played and know by heart, so much that I found myself returning to the chapters that recount how they met, the stories that detail their brilliant resourcefulness so as to carve a bit of space, such as the shop front studio they rented to be able to write, make art and have sex – the landlord who heard their moaning and groaning, thinking the building to be haunted.

The humour and play pulls readers through the moments that make the heart wince, understanding why it was a game they could not lose. I find myself chuckling over their mini hike together, where the privacy of the outdoors opened a breathing space to open up – where Drayton ‘accidentally’ tapped Marshall on the behind. Where would you be if you hadn’t made that move, or Sue, if you didn’t call her up to clarify? Some moves make all the difference. 

When I think of the year 1989 I think of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the birth of my older sister or maybe a Taylor Swift Album. Swivel the telescope to Canterbury New Zealand 1989 and you will discover the two queens who wanted to take a break from the game they were playing: stay at home mothers, wives to absent husbands, or acting as straight when one knew, deep down, she wasn’t. They wanted more and so they returned to university and attended the same art history course. What they were looking for, though, they found in each other – and a different game altogether. 

I emailed Drayton for advice once – about what to do with my life, when I considered doing a postgraduate teaching diploma. I wanted to attend one of her classes because I thought she was someone I wanted to learn from. She replied with something along the lines of follow your heart – I think that’s what she did and perhaps we should all do the same. Return to the cover of The Queen’s Wife and you will find the message loud and clear: follow your heart but take your brain with you. 

Reviewed by Demi Cox