Ghosts of Saint-Pierre is a fictional biography based upon the life of a man who left Saint-Pierre, Martinique a few short years before Mont Pelée buried the city in fire and ash, taking the lives of 30,000 souls, including all of his loved ones.
It is the story of Duane's grandfather, Paul Poncy, who as a young man in Saint-Pierre was related to some of the most powerful families of Martinique, families who built their fortunes off of the back of slavery and exploitation. Paul was a man who, in the face of tremendous personal loss, was never able to speak of his birthplace or the mixed race family he left behind.
The novel, part historical biography, part ghost story, part love story, is told from the perspective of a forty year old father about to bury another son, a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19. The death has brought to the surface all of the ghosts and memories he thought he had buried forever.
"…this shrewd blend of fantasy and historical fiction proves to be unpredictable and moving … poignant, challenging, and clever ghost story with a few surprises." –Kirkus Reviews
Ghosts of Saint-Pierre is a fictional biography based upon the life of a man who left Saint-Pierre, Martinique a few short years before Mont Pelée buried the city in fire and ash, taking the lives of 30,000 souls, including all of his loved ones.
It is the story of Duane's grandfather, Paul Poncy, who as a young man in Saint-Pierre was related to some of the most powerful families of Martinique, families who built their fortunes off of the back of slavery and exploitation. Paul was a man who, in the face of tremendous personal loss, was never able to speak of his birthplace or the mixed race family he left behind.
The novel, part historical biography, part ghost story, part love story, is told from the perspective of a forty year old father about to bury another son, a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19. The death has brought to the surface all of the ghosts and memories he thought he had buried forever.
"…this shrewd blend of fantasy and historical fiction proves to be unpredictable and moving … poignant, challenging, and clever ghost story with a few surprises." –Kirkus Reviews
L’habitation Sablon
There once was a villa on the Rivière Montauban, in Martinique, near Ajoupa Bouillon, where Paul spent a few languorous summers as a child. L’habitation Sablon, Maman’s childhood home, was once the manor house of a small plantation that had been in her papa’s family since the early days of French settlement. Granmé Jeanine continued to live there for a few years after the death of her husband in 1881, before returning to Morne Rouge to be near her birth family, the Petits. Paul’s other grand-mère, on Papa’s side, it might be noted, was also a Petit, and the auntie of Granmé Jeanine.
L’habitation Sablon was a shambling old country mansion full of guest rooms and ghost rooms and mysterious hallways in which a young boy could lose himself for hours in play and exploration under the watchful eye of Emmaline. Emmaline was the family’s household manager, a sort of head maid with no subordinates, because the Fauvé-Sablons could no longer afford a staff of cooks and maids. But to Paul and his brother, Mannie, she was simply Emmaline, the woman who cared for them during those long summers—Granmé’s version of their own Sandrine, back home in Saint-Pierre.
Emmaline’s own children, Daniel and Euphrasie, were among their playmates, and when they were allowed out into the fields, Emmaline watched over them with a keen eye, never allowing them too far from her sight. Snakes sometimes slithered through the old overgrown cane fields, including deadly fer-de-lance, although every year there were fewer of them, as the humans encroached on their tropical forest habitat. But the reptiles appeared occasionally in the fields, and the children, being too young to be trusted on their own, were seldom allowed far from Emmaline’s sight.
There were times, however, when the children would slip away, as Paul and Mannie, along with their visiting cousines, Léonie and Alix, did one August day. Mannie and Alix were the oldest, and Mannie, because he was a boy, was leader of the pack. He should have known better.
“I bet you’re too scared to go into the forest,” he taunted Paul.
“I’m not.”
“By yourself?”
“I’m not scared of some trees.” Young Paul marched with false bravado toward the treeline.
“But there are snakes,” warned Léonie, the youngest but most sensible among them, giving name to one of his biggest fears.
“You’ll be in so much trouble, Paul,” Alix said. “Don’t be stupid.”
Paul faltered.
“They’re just girls,” Mannie scoffed, a fact which, of course Paul knew. But he also knew his brother had challenged him to not be a sissy. And what seven-year-old boy wants to be a sissy? So Paul charged ahead into the forest, until his foot slid over the edge of a muddy pit, the kind that was called a bouillon. He would have gone right in, been swallowed by the mud, if he hadn’t grasped a liana on his way down and clung to it with all his seven-year-old strength. But as hard as he tried, he didn’t have the stamina to hoist himself up to safety. Each time he gained a centimeter his hand would slip on the vine’s slick green skin and the fibers cut into his skin.
“Mannie!” he yelled, on the verge of tears, “I need your help.”
“I told you,” Alix scolded, and he heard her feet running toward the house as she called out for Emmaline. Paul was certain they had abandoned him until he looked up to see Mannie standing above. “Hang on, Paulie.”
“Are there snakes in there?” Paul cried out.
“Probably,” Mannie said. Then, thinking better of it, “I doubt it. I don’t see any. Hang on. The girls are getting help.”
Within minutes, Daniel arrived with Emmaline close behind. Paul could only think about snakes, but he should have been worrying about Emmaline, because she was furious with them when she reached down with her strong black arms and pulled him roughly from the pit.
After all these years, he still recalled Mannie’s cries that evening from the switching given to him by their eldest brother, Eustase.
#
The Sablon house was long gone, swept away by time and the ravages of tropical weather, gone even before he had abandoned his homeland for America, and before the volcano tried, without success, to lay all that history to rest. But Paul still visited the old house sometimes in his quiet hours, unable or unwilling to let it go. In this house in his mind he’d lodged not only the good times but also the painful things, ones he could not face in his daily life, things only called up in the darkness of the night when nothing stirred but the beating of his heart.
The spirit of Eustase lived in that house, and when he opened the door to Eustase’s room, he entered his long-dead brother’s domain. Though Eustase’s world could be a happy, nostalgic place, Paul did not open that door often, because he could as easily stumble into that bloodstained field in Sainte Philomene as into Eustase’s arms.
Papa and Tata Elmire, bless their souls, had rooms there as well. And after the volcano, he’d made a place for Stéphanie and Maman; for Mannie and Joseph and Alice Germaine and Adrien; and for André Paul and Yvonne. Little Yvonne, whom he can only imagine now, but will never know, because she was less than a month old when he abandoned her for America.
And then there were all those others, all the family, friends, and acquaintances lost forever from this world. All lost in the fury of Montagne Pelée. But perhaps many of them were somehow saved, he tried to tell himself in those first years, gone to relatives in Fort-de-France or Lamentin or Sainte-Anne. Perhaps this cold dread is only a misplaced feeling. But this was his fairytale. Of course, they were all gone. All of them. Swept away by the nuée ardent – that blast of searing ash and poisonous gas. There were so many spirits shaking the doorknobs and rattling the windows. But even his ancestral house of revenants could not hold the entire city of Saint-Pierre. Martinique was only a brittle memory now—an island that he had no place for in his daily life, no room for in his cluttered mind. So he locked the door to that house. Visited it only in rare dreams or when he came home exhausted and his family left him in solitude, allowing his mind to wander.
But now, as Paul was about to lay yet one more child to rest, his ghosts rose in their unpredictable way, not in the darkness of night, or in those rare quiet hours, but during the day, interrupting his morose thoughts. When can I meet my new brother, Papa? said Alice Germaine, appearing from nowhere as he sat in the living room with his family in mourning, only hours after the funeral service for Francis Paul.
“This is a living room, child,” he chastised. “Not a dead room.”
His wife, Clara, shot him a concerned look, and eleven-year-old Theresa said, “Are you alright, Papa?”
“I’m fine, mes chères.” He was mortified that he had spoken out loud.
His family did not know about Alice Germaine, or her Maman, Stéphanie, or his other children. They knew almost nothing of Martinique. He could not bring himself to talk about it. Of all his ghosts, though, it was little Yvonne who troubled him the most. Try as he would, he could not conjure a mental picture of his baby or imagine what she might have become had the volcano not taken her away. He’d tried over the years to put these memories to rest. But here they were, slipping like smoke through the shuttered windows, beneath the bolted door, rising on this new wave of grief.
An evocative and thought provoking tale of love, loss, and the connection we keep even after death.
An biographical type novel based on real events and people, Ghosts of Saint-Pierre by authors Duane Poncy and Patricia J. McLean is a book which will stay with you. The novel is centered on Paul Poncy and his bourgeois life in Martinique shortly after slavery was abolished. His interactions between people of both European and African heritage and his more forward political thinking cause him to make difficult decisions in life and love and ultimately lead him to the United States and Canada. Paul is literally haunted by his past life in the form of ghosts and his past history is revealed bit by bit through his memories and conversations with the deceased.
There are a lot of painful and difficult topics addressed in the novel and the authors do a really considerate job of presenting them honestly and fairly. Paul’s upbringing as a well to do white business owner’s son and the subtle racism surrounding him is a theme constant throughout the book and really serves as a sort of guiding line to the narrative.
I found the book to be well crafted with good pacing and tone of voice, making for an enjoyable reading experience. At times the story felt like it became a bit dense from so many side elements and descriptions, but not to such a degree as to take away from the book.
The interwoven elements of love and loss are really beautifully presented and lend a haunting effect to the novel. Long after finishing the last page I found myself thinking about the story and really sympathizing with the characters and their fates.
For anyone who is a fan of confessional type writing I feel that this book would be a perfect read. The idea of how we can never really escape our past whether spiritually or emotionally is an aspect really exceptionally well portrayed, and moves it from a three to four star rating for me.