The Small Wild Goose Pagoda is\n a natural and social history of 433 square yards of India. On this piece of\n land in the foothills of the Himalaya, the Sealy family have a small brick\n house with one-and-a-half bedrooms, two-and-a-half gardens, front, back and\n side, an old Fiat, an internet link with the world, and a terrace roof for\n walking on under the sky. Here?surrounded by trees: litchi, rosewood,\n magnolia, silk cotton, jacaranda, a reluctant pear, a profusely flowering\n peach?Allan Sealy looks back on his life as he turns sixty and goes from\n Householder to Forest Dweller (the two middle stages in the life of a man -\n as set out in Indian philosophical tradition). Lending depth and texture to a\n narrative written in the form of an almanack is his experience of building,\n after a visit to China, a pagoda on his roof. As the pagoda takes shape we\n are introduced to a host of extraordinary characters who drift in and out of\n the 433 square yards: Dhani, family retainer and mali, bent in half by age;\n Habilis, master brick-layer and contractor with a roving eye; Beauty, part of\n Habilis?s crew, who may or may not be his lover; Victor, stoic assistant to\n Habilis?. In this remarkable book, his first in a decade, award-winning\n novelist and travel writer, Irwin Allan Sealy, gives us an evocative account\n of the drama of small town life; at the same time it is an extraordinary\n meditation on work, family history, nature, Indian society, and the passage\n of time.