24 in ’24 Challenge – Book 17 “The Bugatti Queen” by Miranda Seymour

In The Bugatti Queen the author, Miranda Seymour, tells the story of an early female racing driver Helle Nice. The book actually starts with chronicling her life as a dancer and performer who made her way in Paris just after WW1on the stage and also by sleeping with a series of wealthy and famous men. She eventually decided to become a racing driver and it seems that she was motivated by the fame it would bring to her as much as her love of speed and adventure. There were a number of women who were in and around the racing scene at this time but Helle wanted to be the best known and the most famous – she was an expert at PR and getting herself noticed.

Although she did achieve the fame and fortune she desired Helle’s life descended, sadly, into desperate poverty, loneliness and ill-health, cruelly neglected and disinherited by her jealous family and abandoned and robbed by her lover. Her downfall was precipitated by a vicious betrayal at a glamorous party when she was publicly accused by a famous male driver of collaboration with the Gestapo during the occupation – something which the writer cannot completely rule out. She ultimately lived in the care of a benevolent French charity until her death in obscurity.

It’s a fascinating life and the author has made the story very readable, although she is clear when she has had to fill in some blanks in the record with a bit of imagination. It’s obvious that Helle wasn’t always very likeable or very moral but she did everything she could to live the life that she wanted and what she wanted wasn’t unlike what the male drivers of the time sought..

The book is also about the nature of 1930s racing which was decidedly reckless and mostly undertaken by playboys with women drivers often used as publicity and their races regarded as gimmicks. It describes the violent deaths from accidents that often resulted on the banked courses and unregulated tracks that were so popular in those days. Helle herself crashed in Brazil killing and injuring many spectators – something that haunted her for the rest of her life. It wasn’t an easy way to earn a living and Helle didn’t make many friends in her rise to stardom.

This is a fascinating bit of social history and a record of a life lived well in difficult times.