Possibly the best book I've read this year. I re "read" it afterwards on audio with Tom Hanks. A wonderful family saga with deep characters and a meaningful story

This has to be one of my books of the year. Complex, heart felt and with such compelling and believable characters. There is a true sense of history and time developed within the novel.
To call it a ‘family saga’ is to over simplify it’s reach and skill,. And yet the organic way the characters develop is central to the novel.
A masterpiece

I'm amazed about how captivating this book was. Mainly the story goes around an atypical family with their ups and downs and yes.. an old House.

The bond between siblings Maeve and Danny was so touching. So many feels.

Also I was impressed at how much rage I could feel at some point, and then life, and time with their healing power were displayed in a way almost impossible to deny.

My first Ann Patchett, and now I'll definitely will be checking her other books.

I absolutely loved this book. Ann Patchett is a writer who reveals the secrets of the human heart with such a fine scalpel you barely realise she's cut the skin. Here, the hearts she lays bare are those of Danny and Maeve, siblings whose childhood was marked by the ineradicable loss of their mother: not to death, although that's what their father would prefer them to believe, but to desertion. The question of why Elna should have walked away from the grand house on the outskirts of Philadelphia bought for her by her self-made husband , is one that her children spend the years of their adult lives trying to answer. Beautiful, brilliant, vengeful Maeve and her younger brother Danny cannot forget or forgive silly social-climber Andrea who arrived to take their mother's place in the house and in their father's affections.

Patchett sets up a pattern of skilful time-slips that gradually reveal the story of the siblings' lives as children and in adulthood; old hurts are nursed and carried into new relationships, time doesn't. necessarily heal, but as Danny slowly discovers more about himself and what happened in the past, a kind of resolution is achieved. This is a writer at the top of her game.

Clearly I have be late to the party. Prior to The Dutch House I had never read anything by Ann Patchett. I have been missing out on so much. What a fantastic author.
Here is a beautiful, moving book about anything and everything to do with love. But there are other aspects to betrayal, obsession, duty. The house has a life with it- it almost comes alive. It is beautifully written and intertwined within it.
Characters hold their own and are strong and well defined.
This is my first but not my last book written by Ann Patchett that I will be reading.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my unbiased review

A childhood home, it’s daily life, tears, traumas, arguments and family relationships are at the heart of this story by Ann Patchett. The Dutch House was a step up for the Conroy family, their father a property developer adding it to his portfolio however by doing so he alienates his wife who is happy as she is. Danny and Maeve grow up with a missing parent until a step-mother arrives with two children in tow. Throughout their life the house influences decisions they make, their relationships and careers. Found myself rejecting on my own childhood home.

Thank you to Netgalley the author and publishers for ARC of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review.
I’ve heard of Ann Patchett but hadn’t read any of her novels until now, and this seemed like an excellent opportunity to get started. And I really liked the book cover and was intrigued by the title as well. Having read this novel, I’m sure it won’t be the last of the author’s books I read.
Although most reviews are positive, some readers who are familiar with her previous novels felt disappointed, while others loved it as much, if not more, as her previous work. As I said, I have nothing to compare it with, but I enjoyed it. I loved the characters (most of all), I loved the setting, and the writing, that can be lyrical, touching, and humorous in turns.
This is the story of a family, or, to be precise, of two siblings and the people they meet along the way. Maeve and Danny become a family-unit through unfortunate (and at times bizarre) circumstances. Their mother leaves when Danny, the younger of the two, is only three years old, and Maeve becomes his sister/mother/life coach/career advisor and many more things. Their father, Cyril, a real estate magnate, is consumed by his business and never explains much, either about his background, their mother, or the house, the Dutch House of the title. When he marries Andrea, who has two daughters of her own, things change, and when he dies, things take an even more dramatic turn.
The story, such as it is, is narrated in the first person by Danny, who claims to have intended to tell the story of his sister (a rather extraordinary individual I’d love to meet in real life), but he realised that this could not be done in isolation from his own and from that of many others who had also played parts in the events they might not have been fully aware of at the time. Although there is an overall chronological order to the novel, Danny’s memory sometimes circles back and forth to moments or events that are related or linked, at least in his mind, to what he is thinking or talking about at the time. He explores the memories around the Dutch House (a seemingly mysterious place although things don’t go in the direction readers might expect), and how the different people seem to have contrasting versions of what went on and totally different feelings about it as well. Was their mother a saint, or a heartless woman who abandoned her children in her eagerness to help unknown others? Was Andrea a greedy woman (the wicked stepmother of fairy tales) who married their father for his money and then threw them out? Or did she truly love him and resented them for their connection to him? Was Maeve domineering and manipulative or selfless and generous? Why didn’t Danny’s wife, Celeste, and his sister get on? What power did the Dutch House have over its inhabitants?
As I have already mentioned, I loved the characters. Although we don’t get to know all of them completely (this is the story Danny is telling, and at times he can be remarkably lacking in insight and even curiosity), that is part of the charm of the story. This would make a great novel for book clubs, as there is much to discuss, and I am sure different readers will have totally different opinions on the characters and their possible motives and/or justifications. Interpretations are left open, and although there is an end (yes, a happy ending of sorts), the ending does not necessarily provide an explanation for everything that happens, at least not a definitive one. As is the case in real life, people are unknowable, and even those we think we know best can surprise us at times.
I also loved the house. The similarities to a fairy tale are mentioned in the description and in many of the reviews, and perhaps because we first see the house from the perspective of a little boy, there is something magical about it. There are secret drawers, paintings of previous owners, gold leaf decorations, hidden storage places, and the house seems to hold an ongoing influence over those who’ve ever lived or worked there. I would love to visit it, and the combination of grand mansion and some of the characteristics of a gothic castle work well and give it a strong personality, although it might not live up to everybody’s expectations.
I have read some of the negative comments, and I do understand them and don’t necessarily disagree with the points they make, although I feel they don’t detract from the novel. Some people note that there is no plot or story behind it and complain that it is slow. This is a family saga, and as such there is no conventional plot or a great revelation (there are quite a few secrets and misunderstandings that get cleared out, but that is not the same) at the end. Because this is a book about memory, family life, growing older, and forgiveness, it is not a straightforward narration or a page-turner where the main point is to keep the action moving. Life happens at its own pace; there are funny moments, sad moments, enlightening moments, inspiring ones, and disappointments as well. The writing is compelling, but people who love stories full of action and a quick pace should not attempt this novel, unless they are willing to try something different. Some readers also complain that some of the storylines are unrealistic… Well, this is a novel, and I’ve read some that required a much higher degree of suspension of disbelief than this one, but I am sure realism is not what the author was after.
I loved this novel and would recommend it to readers who appreciate a focus on character, beautiful writing, and some touches of magic and are fond of the adult fairy-tale. As usual, I recommend readers who aren’t sure if they’d enjoy it or not, to try a book sample and see how they feel. I look forward to reading more of Patchett’s stories in the future. I have the feeling that they won’t disappoint.

Enthralling and beautifully written.

This is a story about relationships between people and a place, the Dutch house. It is the story primarily of two siblings a brother Danny and older sister Maeve and is told by Danny.

Explaining the story could sound rather uninspiring in the 1940s a father buys the Dutch house moves in his family then splits from his wife, finds another woman, the wicked stepmother expands the family, the family falls out.

This is so much more than that, I was enthralled from the beginning, the way the characters are introduced to you and developed through the book is captivating. The Dutch house takes on a life of its own, the descriptions of its elegance and the various owners takes you back to a time gone by.

My imagination of the house and the characters was vivid due to the details included by the excellent writing of Ann Patchett. The story was sad, shocking, hopeful and heart-warming. You loved and loathed the people and my opinions of them changed as each chapter brought new depth. Often peripheral characters seem of no consequence but each and everyone in this book added to the journey through time. I loved Dr Abel, such a small part in the story but such a lovely man.

This was far removed from my normal genre of reading, but I was consumed from the first chapter and would definitely recommend. I will be reading more of Ann Patchett’s novels very soon.

Taramindo.

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I’ve never read the author before though her name is familiar. If The Dutch House is anything to go by, I’ve missed out. I have a morbid fascination with dysfunctional families, the more dysfunctional the better. I love to write about them and read about them. I love the setting, the house of the title is a place of secrets where people have died and left behind their belongings. There’s something unsettling and almost sinister about the house. The characters are brilliantly written and vivid. The best is the sinister stepmother of the current family, Andrea, what a delightful monster. The pace of the book is very slow at times which didn’t work for me. The book uses a non-linear timeline. I tend to enjoy this and it works really well in the book. I enjoyed the way the book is structured with the current family tragedies interwoven with tragedies of the past. The house is really the main character and I’ve not come across that before. It works really well. The Dutch House is also beautifully written. I’m glad I gave this a chance and have a new author to obsess over.

This is a great read from a really great author. No one does family relationships like Ann Patchett. All set against the background of 20th century America, changing as fast as people in the novel do.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing, and the author Ann Patchett.
This is a truly, truly wonderful book. It is so beautifully written and the characters so well rounded that you can't help but feel completely emotionally invested.
I absolutely devoured it, and would highly recommend it to everyone.
I loved 'Commonwealth', and absolutely adored 'The Dutch House'. I will be tracking down the rest of Ann Patchett's work.
5 stars without a doubt.

I loved this! I've never read Ann Patchett before, but The Dutch House is a lovely, elegant, profoundly legible novel that I was really satisfied by. Wildly easy to read while being very beautifully, unobtrusively written, and I found the central sibling relationship very moving. In a way, this reminded me of a much warmer, more benevolent version of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, so would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoyed that. I'll definitely be seeking more by this author.

Ever since reading Bel Canto I have been a fan of Ann Patchett’s writing so was excited to receive a copy of The Dutch House to read. Danny and Maeve grow up in the beautiful Dutch House in Pennsylvania. The house maybe perfect, but their lives are not. Their mother left when Danny was three, and their father is distant and rarely there so it is Maeve, seven years older than Danny, to take on a maternal role. This all changes when their father brings Andrea into the house and Danny and Maeve find themselves displaced, and end up on the outside looking in. Both are drawn back, wondering about their mother’s absence and their own rejection. Beautifully written this book is about love, loss, family and the power of the past on the present.

The Dutch House is a character driven book focusing on Danny and Maeve, as we follow them from childhood through to adulthood and the reader is a voyeur to how the absence of their mother and the introduction of Andrea effects their lives. The other main character is the house itself; a magnet that continually draws Danny and Maeve back. Danny is the narrator of this book and the plot moves back to their childhood in the house and how it changed when Andrea moved in, and to the times in their lives when they sit in Maeve’s car outside the Dutch House looking in whilst looking back at their past and wondering about their mother. I was very much reminded of a fairytale in that there is the ‘wicked’ stepmother who puts her own children ahead of her stepchildren who find themselves usurped and on the outside, only able to watch from a distance.

What really comes through in this book is Maeve’s sacrifice and care for her younger brother. She is the one who assumes care of Danny when he has nowhere to go and pushes his eduction at the expense of her own life, partly to get her own back at Andrea. Maeve is the most hurt by her mother’s absence as she is the one who remembers her, but doesn’t know why she left. Meave had to grow up fast, take care of her brother which results in her being fiercely independent, refusing to conform to the expectations of others and very loyal to Danny. Danny is the opposite to Maeve in that he does conform and goes to study medicine even though he doesn’t want to be a doctor. He has two strong women in his life, Maeve and his wife Celeste, both of whom mould his life and control him to an extent. Then there is the house, with it’s glass hallway, ballroom and portraits of the original owners the VanHoeBeek’s still in situ. The Dutch House is a house that owns its inhabitants, and is the anchor to which Maeve and Danny cling, draws them back throughout their lives, as they contemplate the past, present and future.

The Dutch House is wonderful read with strong characters whose lives become our own as we read the book. I took both Maeve and Danny to my heart as they faced life’s obstacles, and felt love, loss, forgiveness and faced it all together. I fell in love with The Dutch House as a book and as a character, the emotion it elicited and it’s magnetic pull on Maeve and Danny, a place for them to confront their past and their future. A stunning, poignant and thought provoking read, and one I highly recommend.

This is almost a modern day fairy tale. Cyril Conroy buys a house in Philadelphia, but it is not just any house. The Dutch House has a ballroom on the third floor, a swimming pool and too many stairs for a man with a bad leg. Conroy is a man obsessed with buildings; his wife, uncomfortable with the wealth – a woman who desires always to help the poor and referred to, more than once, as ‘a modern day saint’ – flees the house and leave behind her husband and children, Maeve and Danny.

The novel is told through the point of view of Danny, for whom The Dutch House becomes the centre of his life and, later, the symbol of what he and Maeve has lost. For Cyril remarries the cold, calculating Andrea, who moves into the house with her two daughters. Soon, change comes to the house – Maeve is moved from her beloved room, with the window seat. Later, the two, find themselves outside the house and, as time moves backwards and forwards, they find themselves drawn back, again and again, to sit outside the house, contemplating their changed lives.

This is a story about family and what that means. It is about the relationship between Danny and Maeve, and the stresses his relationship with his sister, later causes with his wife. It is about two wives; one who left a house, one who coveted it. Of course, it is about the house and what it comes to represent to those involved in it. An excellent novel and a good choice for reading groups, with much to discuss.

Another glorious book by Ann Patchett, she can do no wrong in my opinion. I was hooked right from the beginning, right up to the end. Her characters are always so real, so well rounded, that I often feel, they could just walk in and I would immediately know them for who they are.

In this, one of my favourite reads of 2019, the house is a main character, representing the family structure and its enmeshed relationships. The two main characters, brother and sister Maeve and Danny, live in the giant house with their family and some help. The mother leaves and the dad ends up marrying another woman who has two younger daughters of her own. But in their relationship to the others, it's not affection. It's not animosity. It's endurance It will take me a couple of days to process it all. The world of The Dutch House was so real and raw.

There are some novels where I instantly feel connected to the narrator as if he were an old friend. Something about the way Ann Patchett presents her central character of Danny Conroy in her new novel “The Dutch House” hooked me to his consciousness. Maybe it's the tone of his wide-eyed innocence and ignorance as he looks back at his childhood, family life and the home he was cast out of. It's a sensibility I can relate to now that I'm in my early 40s and think back to the mysteries of my early life wondering why certain decisions were made. Danny and his sister Maeve grow up in a grand house with a prosperous father, but their mother abandoned them in their childhood. When their father marries a new woman named Andrea who brings her own two daughters into the house, the Conroy children feel themselves growing even more estranged from their aloof father. In their teenage years they are unceremoniously ousted from their family home and must fend for themselves. Danny recounts this story and the haunting way he and his sister often linger outside the house they've been cast out of ruminating about the past and the truth about their family. In a way, every adult must feel this way reflecting on what Joyce Carol Oates calls “the lost landscape” of childhood. Patchett also poses a number of tantalizing mysteries about this particular family which kept me gripped and I admire the subtle way she raises lingering questions to do with the meaning of family, belonging and home.

The Dutch House of the title was purchased by Danny's father very cheaply in an auction after the family who built and inhabited it fell on hard times and eventually died out. He moves his whole family into this place which still contains all the furnishings and possessions of the previous owners. I like how on top of Danny's wonder about his own family circumstances there's the added mystery of the family that came before them. All their dramas and tribulations seem seared into the structure of the house so that we only see hints of it. This too feels very relatable in the way that we move into a new residence without knowing the story of those who lived their before but we have this odd intimacy with the people who proceeded us because we're inhabiting the space they lived their lives in before. But in Patchett's novel this has a kind of gothic feel as portraits of the previous family adorn the walls staring the Conroy family in the face and co-existing with them. It also has a bigger meaning when thinking about issues to do with capitalism, ownership and how the people who come to possess land and houses aren't always the people who are “justified” in inhabiting them. After all, aren't auctions and “bargain” prices on houses just legal ways of taking advantage of other people's misfortunes and unfortunate circumstances?

Patchett also perfectly frames a feeling of uncertainty and chaos in Danny's life. He grew up accustomed to a certain lifestyle and a belief in what he would become. But because things take an unexpected turn he's suddenly rudderless and doesn't know what direction he'll take: “There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.” It's so powerful how Patchett captures this feeling of being suspended in nothingness and being tormented by a terrible unknowningness.

There's also a terrifying sense in the novel that no matter how bonded we feel to our families they can turn out to be strangers. Since their mother left them early on and their father is so emotionally distant, there's an absence of the love which is supposed to make Danny and Maeve feel secure. They're profoundly disconnected from their parents. So much so that Danny wonders if they're a family at all: “It sounded so nostalgic when he said it, the three of us, as if we had once been a unit instead of just a circumstance.” Even though the brother and sister find trust and rely on their relationship to each other, there's a sombre and haunting sense of loss that their parents never gave them this security. Danny also realises that the bitterness they feel about this becomes an addiction: “We had made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.” So part of their periodic vigilant sessions sitting in a car watching the house they grew up in is clinging to that sense of injustice while silently accusing their parents of abandoning them since their parents aren't there to emotionally stand trial.

There's a pleasure to the style of Patchett's story which has a fable-like feel and is in some ways a kind of modern Cinderella tale. But it also feels modern and relevant in how it reflects on deeper issues to do with our changing society by detailing how families have been made and disintegrated amidst larger economic fluctuations. The novel also creates a new kind of storytelling for which there isn't a precedent in how their mother leaves them for so long because “There is no story of the prodigal mother.” So, unlike “The Odyssey” which is driven more by a roaming father's ego and lust for conquest, their mother Elna's story is driven more by a compulsion to nurture a broken world rather than the children she's given birth to. I admire how these deeper meanings build throughout a novel which (on its surface) is quite a simple story with little plot, but after spending an extensive amount of time in Danny's consciousness I deeply felt their resonance. It proves how Patchett is an incredibly skilled and accomplished novelist.

Oh, how I loved this book, loved it! I’ve never read any Ann Patchett before, but based on this novel, I’m going to work my way through her other novels. The plot, in summary, is about Danny and his older sister Maeve and their enduring relationship through the loss of their mother, the machinations of their stepmother and the death of their father, all interwoven with imagery and memories related to the house where they grew up. It becomes a totem for everything that they’ve lost, and the wheel turns full circle through this complex, absorbing novel.

I don’t recall reading very many books about sibling relationships and this book reflects the ups and downs of being a sibling with depth and warmth. The push-me, pull-you nature of sibling relationships, the irritations and unspoken connections that come from growing up together through difficult ties are very well drawn. Her descriptions are vivid and engaging and I was totally engaged by the twists and turns of the plot, through train journeys and snatched moments on the tube, to the point that I sat reading it one night instead of turning on the telly. It had real heart, The Dutch House, and I would thoroughly recommend it. One for a rainy autumn afternoon in front of the fire.

This is classic Ann Patchett, her compelling writing just draws you in. The story is set in Pennsylvania and is centred around siblings Danny and Maeve and The Dutch House. Unusually the house has a leading role in this drama and the writer’s description of it stayed with me long after I had finished the book. It’s a book about exploring the ties of the past and of love and loss and the importance of home and belonging. All the characters are excellently drawn out which makes this is a sublime family story. One of the best books I have read this year!

I love to find and read books by a new author.......So when The Dutch House by Ann Patchett came available to read and review I jumped at the chance to request it. WoW......what a book this was, I will be reading more books by this author.
This book is set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a very dark fairy tale about two smart people Danny and Maeve who cannot overcome their past. Once you start to read this book you will be hooked. You will learn about Danny and Maeve that will stay with you for a long time and it is a book I would love to recommend and I know I will read it again in the future.

PS......I loved the cover of this book.

Big thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an early ARC copy in return for an honest review