Book Summary and Reviews of A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay

Book Summary

Starring an unforgettably fierce ninety-nine-year-old Jamaican heroine, A House for Miss Pauline 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.

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.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The protagonist of this novel is a ninety-nine-year-old woman at the end of her life. Why do you think the author chose an elder as her main character? What spaces does that choice illuminate and what does it close off? Does Miss Pauline challenge our impressions of old age?
2. The title of this book is reminiscent of V.S. Naipaul's classic, A House for Mr. Biswas, which was originally published in 1961. If you have read Naipaul's book, do you think this was intentional? In what ways is A House for Miss Pauline in conversation with Naipaul's book?
3. The writer uses a metaphorical field with many references to how buildings are constructed, especially those made of stone. For example, '… arousing guilt that clung like ...