Alden Patterson, the last member of the Patterson family, lives in a decaying house in Toronto in the 1930s with Constance, a foundling, and John Hunt, an injured war veteran and the family’s former gardener. Although the Pattersons were once wealthy, William Patterson’s suicide left the family tainted. He is not at all at rest in his after-life and acts as a sometimes narrator and guide to the past, present and future. When Alden is reduced to taking in boarders, she thinks she has found a way to survive until the crash of 1929 leaves her truly desperate and one particular boarder threatens to destroy everything she thinks she wants.

Patterson House is about love and loss and family and shame and mothers and daughters and marriage and being queer. It’s about what happens to women when they don’t have the freedom to make choices about their own lives. It’s about the culpability of colonialists and patriarchs. It’s about what happens to people who are different. It’s about how hard it is for people to change.

Interviews & Reviews

CBC Podcast with Shelagh Rogers: Jane Cawthorne on Patterson House

CBC Books: 65 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in fall 2022

Next Best Book Club 40 but 10 interview series: Jane Cawthorne

A Long Road to Publication for Jane Cawthorne’s Patterson House

Readers Teach Me About My Novel Patterson House

The British Columbia Review: 1808 The Rich and the Desperate

“This was a book I literally could not put down until that very last page—when I still wanted more.”

Historical Novel Society: Review of Patterson House

As stated in the acknowledgements, award-winning author Jane Cawthorne writes about “women in moments of crises and transformation.” She does remarkably well in narrating the development of this novel’s two main characters, Alden and Constance. Cawthorne, a former resident of Toronto, provides interesting details in the settings and scenes around the city. While Patterson House is fictional, its vivid description likens it to any of the rambling mansions in The Beaches neighborhood. The norm for women to play a subservient role in that era are aptly demonstrated in the impediments faced by Alden and Constance in attempting to lead a respectable life.

Open Book: Jane Cawthorne’s Captivating Novel of Early 20th Century Toronto

‘Sweeping in scope and intimate in its characterization, Patterson House is the story of a woman limited by her gender, time, and circumstance, but who is as determined and resourceful in looking to the future as she is haunted by the past. Cawthorne’s taut storytelling is spellbinding and Alden is imperfect, honest, and alive on the page.”

 

Praise for Patterson House

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, Bestselling author of A Death at the Party

 

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, Bestselling author of Leaving Wisdom, W.O. Mitchell Book Prize Winner, Season of Fury and Wonder and the Governor General’s nominee, Where I Live Now. 

 

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 The Last Draft, Swim: Stories of the Sixties, and Occasions of Sin

 

As Patterson House crumbles under the sins and ghosts of the past, readers are gifted with a vivid portrayal of the women behind its walls. Forced to live with the injustices of a man’s world, the remarkable heroines Alden and young Constance share their guilt and grief, resilience and bravery, love and loyalty. Jane Cawthorne’s deeply compelling debut novel—by turns gripping, tragic, and tenderly innocent—will both break and capture your heart.  
– Fran Kimmel, author of No Good Asking and The Shore Girl

 

20 Questions for Book Clubs

I would love to visit your book club. Contact me to invite me for an in-person or virtual visit.

1. What does it mean to be a good mother? Is Alden a good mother?
2. The role of mother and the role of woman are so intertwined that in Alden’s time, they are almost identical. What are the consequences of this belief for Alden? Has it changed? 
3. What are some of the social factors that keep Alden, Constance, and Gwen from working outside of the home? Do these factors continue to keep women from participating in the paid work force today? 
4. Alden complains that men are allowed to have dreams and ambitions throughout their lives, but women’s dreams and ambitions end with marriage and motherhood. Has this changed?  
5. How does John Hunt’s character challenge gender roles? 
6. What kinds of things frustrate Constance? Do her experiences resonate with young women today? 
7. In what ways do the characters disguise themselves to gain acceptance?
8. What can historical fiction teach us about the movement towards equality and inclusion?
9. Patterson House starts with an epigraph by Carolyn Heilbrun about how anger is forbidden to women. Is Alden angry? If so, is it justifiable? What are the consequences of a prohibition on anger for Alden? For all women? 
10. What are some of the means used to control women’s behaviour?
11. How does William Patterson’s death by suicide affect his family? What has changed in the way society speaks of suicide, or, has anything changed? 
12. William Patterson says scandal always has one of two sources: sex or money. Is this true in the novel? Is it true in life? 
13. Many characters in the novel are concerned about their reputations and being the object of gossip and go to great lengths to conceal their problems and even their true selves from being known. How does this affect their lives? 
14. Mrs. Schiffley and Frances Hughes are minor characters, but they have a big impact on Alden. How do they affect Alden?
15. Alden loses faith in institutions like banks and hides money in Patterson House. Is her loss of faith justified? Is there a similar loss of faith in public institutions today? What else does Alden lose faith in? 
16. The gap between rich and poor people is evident in Patterson House and the novel is set in a time where that gap is growing. Are there similarities to today? 
17. Alden works to advance the temperance movement but not the suffrage movement. She is not always a good judge of her own times. What other mistakes does she make? Do we make similar mistakes now? 
18. The main characters of Patterson House are white, and part of a colonial and settler legacy. What does Patterson House have to say about racism in Toronto at that time? What does it have to say about the legacy of colonialism? 
19. Mr. John Hunt is disabled as are many of the past boarders at Patterson House. Gwen walks with a limp after having polio. How do characters react to disability in Patterson House? Have we become less ableist as a society? 
20. Could Patterson House itself be considered a character in this novel?