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A House for Miss Pauline

'One of the Caribbean's finest writers' Monique Roffey

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A House for Miss Pauline

By: Diana McCaulay
Narrated by: Sasha Frost
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About this listen

 *Winner of the 2025 CARICON FICTION PRIZE and shortlisted for the 2025 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE PRIZE*

'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

'Delightful and big-hearted . . . It kept me turning pages deep into the night, and left me full of admiration at the end.' Claire Adam, Guardian

'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

When the stones of her home begin to rattle and call out to her in the quiet of the night, Pauline Sinclair knows she will not live to see her 100th birthday.

From educating herself through stolen books to becoming one of the most successful ganja farmers in the area and raising a family, Pauline has lived a life on her own terms in Mason Hall, a rural Jamaican village.

Yet these whispering walls promise to topple the foundations of her security and exhume Pauline's many buried secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of the man who came to claim the very land on which she built her home, stone by stone, from the ruins of a plantation.

Compelled to make peace before she dies, Pauline decides to leave the only home she has ever known on a final, desperate mission to uncover truths she could never have imagined . . .

Lyrical, funny, eerie and profound, A House for Miss Pauline tells a timely and nuanced tale, infused with the patois and natural beauty of Jamaica, which questions who owns the land on which our identities are forged.

'History's crimes unfurl in this magical story . . . McCaulay's immaculate, breathtaking writing carries it with poise and conviction.' Lisa Allen-Agostini, author of THE BREAD THE DEVIL KNEAD

'Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? . . . A profound and beautiful novel of encounters with the past and atonements in the present.' Julia Alvarez, author of THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES©2025 Diana McCaulay African American Genre Fiction Ghosts Gothic Historical Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Magic World Literature Caribbean Funny Heartfelt Village

Critic reviews

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. (Claire Adam)
Exudes a raw authenticity . . . Miss Pauline, like Jamaica and ultimately A House for Miss Pauline itself, is a brutal beauty forged in decades of adversity . . . Subtle and detailed, darkly humorous, and at times eerie and sinister. (Colin Grant)
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 centre cannot hold, things fall apart, the past is uprooted, the present holds on by a 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)
A vivid story of inheritance and belonging, informed by the author's own fascinating family history. (Hephzibah Anderson)
History's crimes unfurl in this magical story - a story as Jamaican as the stones in the title - and 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)
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)
Diana McCaulay, an award-winning Jamaican writer and environmental activist, possesses a Steinbeck-like social awareness of injustice and prejudice, and her prose flows with a poetic rhythm that makes it profoundly pleasing to read . . . A House for Miss Pauline is a beautiful, poetic novel that makes me want to explore McCaulay's entire back catalogue.
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)
Where has Diana McCaulay been all my reading life? . . . A profound and beautiful novel of encounters with the past and atonements in the present. (Julia Alvarez, author of THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES)
All stars
Most relevant
a house for miss pauline.

words cannot describe how i feel listening to this audio book. it is a complex tanglement of grief loss and fierce fierce passion for justice and a olds to call home.

when i finished kindred for the first time i was left with this hollow empty feeling of brushing up against history, like ive gotten the spikes of the 18th century stuck in the skin of my shoulder. reading a house for miss pauline felt like history had me by the throat. this book is told through the eyes of miss pauline a 99 year old jamaican woman from mason hall. she is tormented by the shifting stones of her house, voices that groan in a language she can’t understand as her own past and the deterioration of her mind start to bleed together. miss pauline is determined to get her affairs in order, but even a woman as learned, as staunch and strong as her can still be shocked at the discoveries awaiting for her.

i thought about kindred a lot while reading this book, as i mentioned before i felt the similar feelings of just how heavy black history is. when octavia butler reflected on writing the ending of kindred she said “I couldn’t really let her come all the way back. I couldn’t let her return to what she was, I couldn’t let her come back whole and that, I think, really symbolizes her not coming back whole. Antebellum slavery didn’t leave people quite whole.” (this is in reference to dana’s loss of an arm. this is not a spoiler i promise lol) and i think this is what i held on to while listening to this book. this idea that history will always always affect us, change us, move us. the past IS the present and the future.

in africa we have a saying “i am because you were.” it’s part of the ubuntu philosophy and it’s a beautiful way to remind ourselves that we existed because THEY (our ancestors) existed first. we are one of the same. i think this idea exists threaded through the words of this novel. a constant returning to who lived before these characters and what how they came to mason hall in the first place.

miss pauline was born in 1918, to a colonised jamaica where the scars of slavery lived on in the curve and twists of her family’s bodies. the warnings of the evils that lurk in the forest, the house that belonged to the slave owner. the house where a single manacle meant for a child was found in the ruins.

but it’s not just a story about slavery (though it is- every road leads back to this.) it’s about justice. about love. about dreams. it’s about white people and their audaciousness. about men and their penchant for demanding what’s not theirs. of taking what’s not theirs. the partakes between a preacher who harms young girls and takes what is not meant for him, and a white man in the throes of a new century returns to a land that has never been his, has never claimed to be his demanding for his land back.

i really recommend listening to the audiobook voiced by sasha frost, she’s an incredible voice actor and eleven red this entire reading experience. this is such a masterpiece of a book and knowing that the author had discovered her own history and how her ancestry intertwines with slave owners i can’t imagine what that must feel like, and how cathartic writing a novel like this must’ve been like. five stars across the board, best way to start international woman’s month!

the voice acting is incredible

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As a student of history and an avid lover of searching for my Jamaican ancestry, with a Jamaican mum called Pauline. I was gripped by this book. I reflected shards of light on the lives of Women who gave us life, their hidden stories and their secrets. There is so much more to tell.

Duppy Know Who Fi Frighten

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The narrator did a fantastic job, I could listen to her for hours. The book itself was outstanding from start to finish, I was totally invested in the story of Miss Pauline, could not reccomend highly enough

Absolutely outstanding

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