#Summer Reads: The Pagoda by Patricia Powell

Handpicked by National Library of Jamaica staff, these books are sure to grab your attention and maybe even teach you something you didn’t know before. All our #SummerReads are available in the book collection at the NLJ. Let us know what you think! 

The Pagoda by Patricia Powell

Our second pick has been selected by Bernadette Worrell, Head of Research and Information and THE guru on the library’s extensive book collection.

Her #SummerRead is Patricia Powell’s third novel, ‘The Pagoda’.

Set in the early 1890s of post-Emancipation Jamaica, The Pagoda introduces us to Mr. Lowe – an aged Chinese shopkeeper who entered a marriage of mutual convenience with Miss Sylvie some 30 years before. Having met Mr. Lowe we are aware this character is one that only after several swirls would he become an acquired taste – you just never know how to handle his reserved demeanor. Nonetheless, we are immediately hurled into his world – into what would normally be a thoroughly devastating event, but in this instance actually conveys feelings of liberation and tempered restraint. Powell pulls on the strength and vision of this character who aims to use tragic circumstances to start anew – if his multi-storied secrets would allow. Throughout the entire novel, we are all the more captivated by the subtle but pointed way the writer allows love, hate, and power to cohabit – each triumphing at different intervals. Powell takes readers on an emotional roller coaster across each chapter.

The Pagoda grabs and reels in the senses with vivid imagery evoking tropical scents that take you to a place and time that is completely Jamaican and a perfect National Library of Jamaica recommended #SummerRead.

-Bernadette Worrell, Head of Research and Information Department

Bernadette Worell