A House for Miss Pauline - by Diana McCaulay (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A tender and urgent story about who owns the land on which our identities are forged, starring an unforgettably fierce ninety-nine-year-old heroine"--

Book Synopsis

Starring an unforgettably fierce ninety-nine-year-old Jamaican heroine, this "profound and beautiful novel" transports readers to the heart of rural Jamaica with a tender and urgent story about who owns the land on which our identities are forged (Julia Alvarez).

When the stones of her house begin to rattle and shift and call out mysterious messages to her in the middle of the night, Pauline Sinclair, age ninety-nine, knows she will not make it to her one-hundredth birthday. She has lived a modest life in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village, educating herself with stolen books, raising her two children, surviving by becoming a successful ganja farmers in the area, and experiencing both deep passion and true loss with her beloved baby father, Clive.

Behind this seemingly benign façade, however, Miss Pauline has buried many secrets. To avenge her enslaved ancestors, she has built her house, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation on her land. And she knows more than she has told about the disappearance of Turner Buchanan--a white American man who came to Mason Hall decades ago to claim her land. The whispering stones, Miss Pauline realizes, are telling her that she must make peace with the past before she dies.

With help from her American granddaughter, Justine, and Lamont, a teenager she enlists to help her navigate the mysteries of the Internet, she searches for those she has wronged. But as the people and stories of her past come to invade her present, she discovers that there are shocking secrets even she could not have anticipated.

Lyrical, funny, eerie, and profound, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica, A House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced story about identity, colonialism, and land--and introduces an unforgettable heroine who is a model for living life on her own terms.

Review Quotes

"Delightful and big-hearted... It kept me turning pages deep into the night, and left me full of admiration at the end. McCaulay, a born-and-bred Jamaican, wrestles with the big stuff - difficult questions about inheritance, guilt and blame - and she does it bravely, and with honesty."​--The Guardian (UK)

"How do we reckon with our past when its complexities are hidden to us--history, with all its tragedies and contradictions, smothered by the Jamaican bush? This is the foundational question of A House for Miss Pauline, a beguiling novel of secrets and discoveries enriched by the tough poetry of Patois and animated by a central character you will never forget."--Gregory Normington, author of The Devil's Highway

"McCaulay's masterful pacing keep readers turning the pages until the very end. Everything about the novel is charming and engrossing...Richly drawn, powerful characters tug at your heartstrings, bring tears to your eyes, and make you laugh out loud. Above it all, McCaulay's skillful, impeccable, lyrical prose captivates instantly; readers will revel in every glorious sentence."--Booklist

"Fragile and foul mouthed, Miss Pauline is my new heroine. McCaulay peels back layers to reveal the complexity of our grandmothers. She makes me want to find every Black elder and beg for their story. A House For Miss Pauline is a lush undergrowth of a book, gazing unblinkingly at Jamaica in all its beauty and beastliness. McCaulay loves this land and her writing shows it."--Leone Ross, author of This One Sky Day

"McCaulay weaves an intimate family story with the history of a community and reveals how past crimes--both private and collective--resonate into the present. Told with elegant prose and the musicality of Jamaican patwah, this immersive story intrigued me, gripped me, and then thoroughly enchanted me. Diana McCaulay is a fantastic storyteller."--Lisa Smith, author of Jamaica Road

"What begins as one woman's symphony of magic and loss soon unravels, stone by stone, secret by secret, until we're left with nothing less than the brutal, turbulent, wild, and haunted history of Jamaica itself. Miss Pauline is the dazzling heroine of our times, a cypher for uncovering the secrets her world keeps hidden even as she hides her own. The center cannot hold, things fall apart, the past is uprooted, the present holds on by thread, and in the midst of it all is Miss Pauline, strong, conflicted, driven, and remarkable." --Marlon James, Booker Prize-Winning Author of Moon Witch, Spider King

"As it makes its points about the complex legacy of colonialism and recaps a century of life in rural Jamaica through the eyes of one fierce and enterprising woman, the novel educates and entertains. Alive with the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of Jamaica."--Kirkus Reviews

"Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? In this engrossing and glorious novel--reminiscent of V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas--prepare for full immersion in the world of Jamaica, not from a tourist's perspective but from the mind and heart and spirit of the unforgettable Miss Pauline, whose enslaved ancestors built the island that has historically dispossessed them. This is a profound and beautiful novel rich with encounters with the past and atonements in the present."--Julia Alvarez, bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, and The Cemetery of Untold Stories

"Diana McCaulay is one of the Caribbean's finest writers. Her novels are building blocks of the current Caribbean canon and will be read for years to come."--Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch

"History's crimes unfurl in this magical story. Diana McCaulay's immaculate, breathtaking writing carries it with poise and conviction. This novel is poetry."--Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of The Bread the Devil Knead

About the Author

Diana McCaulay is a much-recognized Jamaican environmental activist and the award-winning author of five novels. Winner of the Gold Musgrave Medal, Jamaica's highest award for lifetime achievement across the arts and sciences; twice Winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize for the Caribbean region (in 2022 and in 2012), she has also been shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award, among other nominations, and is the winner of the Watson, Little 50 Prize for unrepresented writers aged 50+. Diana was born and lives in Kingston, Jamaica, is a founding editor of Pree, an online magazine for Caribbean writing, and is currently also working on an anthology of environmental writing.