Pat of Silver Bush

Pat of Silver Bush (1933) is a novel written by Lucy Maud Montgomery, noted for her Anne of Green Gables series. The protagonist, Patricia Gardiner (called Pat), hates change of any kind and loves her home, Silver Bush, more than anything else in the world. She is very devoted to her family: her father and mother, her brothers Joe and Sid, and her sisters Winnie and Rachel (who everyone in the family calls Cuddles). The book begins when Pat is 7 years old and ends when she is 18.

Throughout the text, various members of Pat’s family are lost from Silver Bush (Aunt Hazel to marriage, Joe to life as a sailor, and Winnie to marriage). Pat is sustained through these losses due to her enduring love for her home. She is “unlike other children” and has few close friends. She maintains a strong friendship with Hilary “Jingle” Gordon, and later befriends Elizabeth “Bets” Wilcox, who eventually dies of the flu.

Like most of Montgomery’s texts, Pat is a domestic tale. Unlike Anne Shirley or Emily Starr, the only other Montgomery heroines whose stories are told in multiple texts, Pat is not ambitious nor a writer. She also has a conventional family and home life, unlike the others, who are orphans.

The book’s sequel, Mistress Pat, describes her later years.