Part historical novel, part feminist rally cry.
Tainted by the suicide of her long dead and scandal plagued grandfather, Alden Patterson wants two things: to regain what she sees as her rightful place in Toronto society and to do so without succumbing to the traditional role of wife and mother. But escaping such roles is almost impossible for a woman in 1916 and the history of the Patterson family and Patterson House haunts her. On the day she imagines her most ambitious plans will come to fruition, Alden unexpectedly becomes guardian to a foundling, Constance. Alden’s dreams are further dashed when her father dies in the Spanish Flu epidemic and she learns that the family money is gone. Aided by a former member of the household staff and returning veteran, the horribly disfigured John Hunt, Alden takes in boarders to support this unlikely trio. When a mysterious new boarder, Carling Grant, arrives, Alden thinks he will save her, but his presence, the divisions he creates, and the secret he reveals puts everything Alden has at risk–her house, her identity, John Hunt, and even Constance.
Part sweeping historical novel, part ghost story, part coming of age tale and part feminist rally cry, PATTERSON HOUSE is a novel that manages to do so much at once. I loved the close examination of Toronto’s history and the reality of women’s limited options in the early 1900s. Alden Patterson is a fictional hero for our times, a woman trying hard to retain her independence in an era that doesn’t allow for it. Cawthorne’s writing is fluid and spare, allowing the novel’s twists and turns to guide the reader. This is a wonderful book.–Amy Stuart, author of Still Mine
One of the numerous delights of this first novel is the picture it presents of Toronto at the turn of the twentieth century and into the 1930s. But it is Toronto as lived in by women: the unwed mothers, the motherless girls, the women who have given up their rights when they marry only to discover how bad the bargain they have made is, and also, but certainly not the least, those brave ones who defy convention and refuse the life laid out for them. Salvation for women is hard to come by in this writerly world, but it sometimes does through dogged persistence, mutual support, simple courage, and once in a while, through plain dumb luck. Jane Cawthorne’s PATTERSON HOUSE is a tightly-woven, warm and lively novel that builds in tension in such a way that nearing the end, the reader won’t be able to put the book down.–Sharon Butala
The PATTERSON HOUSE saga is old-fashioned in all the right ways: a great broad canvas of time and event; multiple characters with deeply complicated desires and obstacles; and maybe best of all, writing that is both muscular and lyrical. PBS, are you reading?–Sandra Scofield, author of six novels, including the National Book Award finalist Beyond Deserving
Fiction. Women’s Studdies.
