I must declare an interest: I adore Ann Patchett’s work, and have been eagerly awaiting the publication of every new novel since her third, breakthrough, novel ‘The Magician’s Assistant’ – one of the wisest, most empathetic books I have read.
But to focus on the task in hand. To summarise the plot of ‘The Dutch House’ briefly: a lucky chance at the end of WWII puts Cyril Conroy on the road to real estate riches. His first major nouveau riche purchase is to buy the opulent Dutch House, once owned by Philadelphia ‘royalty’ the VanHoebeeks, all grand staircases and glass, as a surprise for his wife.
Unfortunately, the fait accompli of a lavish new home comes as a shock to Elna, rather than a surprise. She cannot cope with their new-found wealth and extravagance and abandons Cyril and her two children, Maeve and Danny, to throw herself into redemptive acts of charity.
After their father’s death, the two children are subsequently banished from the house – a modern-day Hansel and Gretel – and spend a significant amount of time over the ensuing decades ‘stalking’ the house.
“'Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?”, Danny asks his sister as they sit in the car watching the house, and goes on to answer his own question: “We overlay the present onto the past.” For a house so transparent – you can see right through it – the Dutch House hides many secrets.
They compare their memories, and puzzle over why their mother left, whether Andrea really was the wicked step-mother they recall (she is said to have “lingered like a virus”), and why their father was eternally emotionally absent. Whose fault was the marriage break-up? Why would a mother choose her Mother Teresa complex over her children? The reader is sucked into trying to answer these questions, along with Danny and Maeve.
The house represents different things to different characters. To self-made man Cyril, it’s the pinnacle of the commercial success of his property empire. To idealistic Elna, it’s a monstrous carbuncle when so many in post-war America have so little. To grasping Andrea, it’s the culmination of her social-climbing ambitions.
The book steps backwards and forwards in time without missing a beat. The relationship between the two siblings is marvellously observed: Maeve all-protective maternal stand-in, who in effect sacrifices her chances of happiness to care for Danny, indulged younger sibling. The domestic help characters – Fluffy, Sandy and Jocelyn – also have their own take on the past.
I was given the opportunity to read ‘The Dutch House’ via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review (and will post on Amazon, once the review function opens.) It’s hard to do justice to this wonderful novel in a few lines. Do read it!

Once again, it is proved that you really can judge a book by its cover.

The Dutch House, Ann Patchett's latest novel, is set in Philadelphia and follows the lives of siblings Maeve and Danny Conroy and their family, both direct and indirect.

Danny and Maeve Conroy grow up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though their father is distant and mother absent, Danny and Maeve enjoy their childhood together, and their life in the Dutch House. However, all that changes when Andrea comes into their lives, and not for the better.

Years pass, the siblings grow up, get jobs, marry (in Danny's case), make new connections. But still, the Dutch House (and its occupants) draw them back again and again and again. But, powerful though the absence of the house in their lives is, what really hurts is the still unexplained absence of their mother.

The Dutch House is a powerful, heartbreaking yet uplifting novel, written in Patchett's inimitable style. I loved it. And yes, I will be buying a copy of the novel too. I have to have it on my shelves.

This is a kind of superior family soap opera with the necessary dysfunctional family, secrets and memories, and a house which is a character in its own right - sound familiar? Well yes, me too. A bit realistic fairy-tale (the wicked stepmother, Hansel & Gretel), where this scores is in the characterisation, especially of Maeve, part sister, part maternal figure to the narrator.

I'd say this will appeal to readers wanting a traditional family story. For me, I found it frustrating that no-one could get beyond the past with this constant circling back to what has gone before. The writing is unobtrusive, plain and simple prose, nothing inventive. An undemanding read but with a tangible sense of warmth and love between the brother and sister protagonists.

I really enjoyed this and read it in just a couple of days.

Danny and Maeve’s father, Cyril, purchases the Dutch House for his wife Elna; it comes complete with furniture, fittings, and even paintings of the previous inhabitants.

But what is it about the house that makes and breaks relationships? Andrea, Cyril’s second wife, covets the house and before they know it, Danny and Maeve are unwelcome… yet fast forward and the ties to the house are strong, pulling Danny and Maeve back to the house and to their past.

I loved the characters, the vivid descriptions of the house, and the story. The house becomes its own character within the story, and compels you to keep on reading. Highly recommended.

Lovely story of a brother and sister lovingly told. Complex and touching this book reminded me of the power of real story telly. I have never read a book by Ms Patchett before but I will be seeking them out now. Thankyouto bloomsbury for this ARC

Certainly the best novel I've read this year. Profound, moving and thought-provoking, this is Ann Patchett's masterpiece. 'The Dutch House' is an exploration of family that raises important questions about how far anyone can ever come to terms with early trauma. In a cast of vividly memorable characters it is also the descriptions of the house itself that stayed with me. There are echoes of Scott Fitzgerald in the achingly sad image of a brother and sister constantly returning to sit in a car so they can look through the gates of what used to be their family home. Highly recommended.

The Dutch House is a grand mansion in Philadelphia, originally built for a Dutch family. It's the house that Maeve and Danny (who narrates the book) grow up in. Their mother left when Danny was too young to remember her and the siblings share an intense bond. It's the kind of house that people fall in love with: their father did, their stepmother does. The "Dutch House" (as they always call it) leaves a lasting imprint on them for the rest of their lives. But while the house provides the central focus for the story, it's essentially about Maeve and Danny and the way their childhood and the loss of their mother influences the rest of their lives.

This is a wonderful book, a book that you lose yourself in. Maeve and Danny are terrific characters. I loved them, I was invested in them. I was in awe of the way that Patchett advances the plot steadily whilst always weaving backwards and forwards in time. You barely notice she's doing it and even when you do, it's like expert stitching, you can't quite see where it happened. Oh and can I give a shout out to the gorgeous cover too? It's a painting of Maeve which also features in the story. Everything about this book feels considered and perfect.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is about Danny's childhood in the Dutch House. The middle section is about its ongoing influence on him and Maeve and the third section brings things full circle. Nevertheless it doesn't FEEL like a structured book. At the halfway mark I kept waiting for something to happen, thinking it was going to turn into a particular kind of story with a familiar arc. It doesn't. It's only when you finish it that you realise what Patchett was doing and you appreciate her mastery.

At one point Danny's wife refers to Danny and Maeve as being like Hansel and Gretel - "you just keep walking through the dark woods holding hands no matter how old you get". There are many fairytale elements to this story: the absent mother, the evil stepmother, the house that's like a palace. And yes, there's a happy ending of sorts, but it's one that reflects real life rather than fairytales.

Thank you very much to Bloomsbury who gave me an advance copy for review via Net Galley.

I want to give this book more stars because the writing was competent but after I closed the book I just feel that it was very forgettable. The siblings and so also the reader spend such a large portion of the book stuck in a feedback loop outside of the Dutch House that by the time there is any growth or plot momentum the story is mostly over. This is a real shame because some passages were truly moving and relatable. I would certainly read something else by this obviously talented author, but in this case the span of generational events felt far too meandering.

Brilliant. Beautifully written, emotional and thought provoking. Wonderful strong characters. I didn’t want it to end.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

I thought Ann Patchett’s previous novel, Commonwealth wonderful and was thrilled to be given an advance copy of The Dutch House by the publisher.

The story takes place over several decades, with the grand Dutch house on the outskirts of Philadelphia the nexus connecting the protagonists. Siblings Maeve and Danny spent their childhood at the house and Danny narrates their story into adulthood. Their mother left when Danny was a small boy and since their wealthy father was always working, it was up to Maeve and the servants, sisters Jocelyn and Sandy to bring him up. Danny and Maeve have a very close, loving relationship but then their father marries Andrea who is cold, detached – even towards her own two daughters and, seems more interested in the house and the status it inheres.

Danny’s narrative seamlessly moves between childhood and adulthood, the time when he and Maeve were living at the house and the time when they could only look at it from a distance, having been excluded. The house, the memories and the bonds they formed while living there continue to influence the rest of their lives.

Patchett has a great knack for writing about families and family relationships, insightful, realistic, she draws you in with beautiful writing. At the same time, I know I will be in the minority but I only liked The Dutch House, I didn’t love it.

Early on, I started questioning Danny’s reliability as a narrator, after all he was a small boy when the narrative starts and refers to himself as unobservant. At times, I questioned his memory and his perception of events and people and wasn’t fully convinced that Patchett addressed this. I also didn’t feel that I really got to know the other characters, I just learned of them from Danny who sometimes seemed pretty oblivious. Maeve, the girl in the portrait on the cover, remains tantalisingly elusive and so do the people inside the house after Danny and Maeve were no longer there. Still, The Dutch House is a good book, I guess my expectations were just somewhat different and it’s a case of it’s not you, it’s me.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review The Dutch House.

‘The Dutch House’ is up there with my best reads of 2019. Ann Patchett certainly understands the complexities of family life through the way in which she narrates her story: the multi-layered re-tellings of key incidents; the ways in which everyone thinks that their truth is the real truth; why family bonds are so essential and yet so painful.
Maeve and Danny live in the Dutch House, a stunning piece of architecture that their property developer father bought for a song after WW11. When their mother leaves the family, older sister Maeve becomes the primary carer for Danny, supported by Sandy, their loyal housekeeper and her sister Jocelyn, their cook, both of whom love the children as their own and yet have no claim on them. This unusual family becomes entirely dysfunctional when their father brings his new wife Andrea Smith and her two little girls to the Dutch house.
Andrea is up there with the most memorable literary villains. Other than a greedy aesthetic predilection for the contents of the house and a desire to lay claim to the bricks and mortar, it’s difficult to see what drives Andrea to be so very unpleasant to Maeve and Danny. However, Ann Patchett writes about her so convincingly that we never question the veracity of her appalling behaviour. Nevertheless, although death, divorce, estrangement and loss of faith all feature as we are led through the decades of the twentieth century, this story is anything but gloomy. Patchett is incredibly adept at moving backwards and forwards through the years, painting the lives of the Conroy family in a style that replicates memory whilst being as clear and precise as yesterday.
We admire Maeve for her tenacity and her fierce loyalty, for her refusal to play the part that others want her to, for her ability to forgive and her lack of self-pity. The striking portrait of her, aged ten, (and what an apposite book cover) suggests who she could have been, had she not been so horribly scarred by her childhood. As he ages, whilst still determined to follow his own path, her brother Danny grows more able to see others’ viewpoints and admit to his own mistakes. His daughter, May, emerges quietly to be the very best compilation of Conway strengths and talents. Through her, Patchett suggests that we can learn from our families rather than excusing ourselves because of their dubious histories. May does just this and, as she walks into the house at the end of the novel, she is just where she wants to be in every respect: ‘She smiled. Even in the darkness you could have seen it.’
My thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing plc for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I'd not read any Ann Patchett before this one, and I was really impressed. I loved the premise of the story, I loved all the characters, and I especially loved the storytelling. It only took me a couple of days to read it, and from beginning to end I thought it was fantastic. I know I'm gushing, but please, do read it. I won't repeat what it's about, as I'm sure all other reviewers are doing that already! Suffice to say, at its most basic, it's about a house, the family that grow up in that house, and what happens when they must leave. Brilliant.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Publication date 24 September 2019

Ann Patchett has a way of bringing characters to life, constructing them bit by bit inside your mind. In the Dutch House she does this with such thoroughness that at times the book is almost too poignant. It is a tale of family, memory, perception, and identity. It tugs on heart strings, but, unlike so many books, it doesn’t feel contrived—it feels as though it’s a true a story being told, reactions be what they may, never leaving you feeling the plot or characters are mere tools of emotional manipulation. You sympathise with Danny and Maeve, you see them, hear them, you are a silent passenger sitting in the back seat of their car.

The plot is cleverly constructed, in and out of places in time—it feels effortless, but surely wasn’t. Even as Danny becomes more aware of his egocentricity, you watch his and his father’s pasts unfold, watch history repeat itself unawares. In the nuance, this book is built like a painting; while some characters are in fine detail, others are depicted in wider strokes, but these decisions feel very deliberate, a way of seeing who captures Danny’s attention and interest and in this you can see again how he unwittingly echoes his father.

A book that compels you to keep reading; I spent a couple days saying, ‘just one more chapter’.

With thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing Plc and Netgalley for the providing me an advance copy of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.

Cyril Conroy and his wife Elna live in a small house on a military base. One day he borrows a car and drives her and young daughter Maeve to a beautiful mansion known as the Dutch House. He proudly tells Elna that it's theirs. She hates it.

The story is told by Danny, the son born after the Conroys moved into the house. The narrative spans 5 decades and move back and forward in time. Gradually, the story of the house and family is revealed.

A beautifully crafted literary page turner. It is character rather than plot driven, exploring memory and memories. I greatly enjoyed it.

In the 1940s, Cyril Conroy surprises his wife, Elna, by secretly buying and then giving to her the Dutch House, a mansion in Elkins Park, Philadelphia, so called because of its original owners (the VanHoeBeeks), whose huge portraits still hang in the house along with all their other possessions: Cyril didn't just buy the house, he bought everything in it.

Elna hates it. She hates it a lot. She hates it enough to take some drastic actions.

Many years later, Cyril and Elna’s children, Maeve and Danny make repeated trips to sit in a car outside the Dutch House and talk about its influence on their family.

Danny is our narrator for this story that jumps around over a 50 year period and gradually reveals the history of the Conroy family (which I am not going to discuss here - read the book!).

The non-linear timeline of the story keeps the reader alert. I have to acknowledge that there were times when it took me a few pages to work out exactly when I was reading about (I had a similar experience when reading Commonwealth: Patchett doesn’t date stamp all her sections and it can sometimes take a while to place them in the overall timeline. That’s not a complaint as it adds to the fun of reading).

As we read Danny’s recollections of his family, we also begin to see that he is unsure about some of it. He tells the story of how he met Celeste, whom he went on to marry, but it quickly becomes apparent that Maeve has a different memory of that. At one point, Danny asks ”Do you think it is possible to ever see the past as it actually was?” and later he says

”Oh, would that we had always lived in a world in which every man, woman and child came with a device for audio recording, still photography, and short films. I would have loved to have evidence more irrefutable than my own memory…”

Not only is memory suspect, but learning new things changes both Maeve’s and Danny’s perceptions of the past. At one point, Maeve says

”I’ve always had it in mind that I hated Fluffy, that she had hit you and she had slept with Dad, but it turns out I don’t hate her at all.”

This uncertainty about memory added to the changing perceptions as truth is revealed leads to a feeling of shifting sands beneath the narrative. Patchett isn’t writing a story full of action and drama - it’s a family saga telling the story of a somewhat dysfunctional family - but she is writing a story that makes the reader wonder what else was going on behind the scenes.

The writing here is very easy on the eye. Patchett writes with a lightness of touch and sensitivity of observation that makes the pages flow by. There are insightful comments about human nature that are dropped in so casually they almost slip by. It all feels very accomplished. I enjoyed it a lot.

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC via NetGalley.

The Dutch House has instantly won a place on my favourites list. It is a wonderful exploration of complicated family dynamics, home, inheritance and exile. However, what I enjoyed most of all is the way Ann Patchett describes memory: the stories we tell ourselves and each other, our own family 'legends' and how we think about significant figures from our past.

For me, this book belongs in that rare 'literary page-turner' category, brought alive by its memorable characters and insightful, understated writing. I have read and enjoyed three of Ann Patchett's earlier books but, for me, this is the best yet. I'd recommend this to those who liked Ann Patchett's last novel 'Commonwealth', as well as to lovers of 'The Last Romantics' by Tara Conklin, 'Little Fires Everywhere' by Celeste Ng or 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt.

The Dutch House leaves a lasting impression on its visitors and I fully expect it will stay with me for a long time to come.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Bloomsbury UK for the opportunity to read a free advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I completely adored this book. From it’s opening paragraphs I was drawn in and I wasn’t released until I finished it.

Maeve is a stunning character. She is bold and brave and I felt for her so completely as the story moved on. Danny, her younger brother is perfectly flawed and their relationship is so absolutely right and eloquently described.

The supporting characters are simple, and elegantly woven into the siblings tale. I was particularly fond of Jocelyn and Sandy.

Then we have the backdrop of The Dutch House. I’m certain I will see this house in my dreams tonight, with the lights shining through the glass.

I haven’t read any of this authors previous works and I’ll be remedying this as soon as possible. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my copy of this beautiful and memorable book.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. The characters beautifully drawn and brought to life before your eyes. I felt all their emotions as I read.

Patchett is truly a writer who knows and has fine-tuned her craft, which is especially evident within the pages of this powerful tale of family, abandonment, perspectives and above all the individuality of relationships. Not one is the same.

Each relationship we create, foster or even tear asunder is identifiable to ourselves by our own frame of reference, experiences and memories. It is never quite the same for someone else, which is why a group of us can all know a person well and yet experience relationships with that person on a completely different level and way to every other person in said group.

I think that is one of the most poignant parts of the story. It is certainly the aspect that defines the role of the absentee mother. What Danny feels and has experienced isn't what Maeve experienced in regards to their mother, which in turn also applies to Cyril and the rest of the women from the Dutch house.

The house itself, which is integral to the plot, and the emotions which are tethered to said house become singular relationships in their own right. Once again, it takes on a different level of importance for each one of the characters.

Danny and Maeve struggle with the fact their mother just upped and left them, which is compounded tenfold when their father brings home a new stepmother and two stepsisters. A stepmother who is fascinated by the house and wealth her marriage brings with it. A woman who feels as if Danny and Maeve are the enemies.

The siblings have a strong bond necessitated by the indifference and neglect they experience. Neither of them understands the intricacies of their relationship until others intrude upon it. Towards the end Danny finally understands the measure and depth of their relationship and wherein his peace and happiness really lies.

I loved the way Patchett wove and spun this story. It's beautiful and yet simultaneously also incredibly sad at times. It's literary fiction, a beautiful contemporary read about altruistic relationships and family dynamics.

"Our father was a man who had never met his own wife."

I think this is a classic case of it's-not-you-it's-me.

I found the writing adept but prosaic; fine for a plot-driven novel but this was more character-driven, and in these sorts of novels I prefer more "literary" fiction (even though I tend to avoid that term because of various reasons) with devices such as stream-of-consciousness, poetic prose, etc, especially if written in the first person, which this is. The writing wasn't bad by any means, and there were a couple of deft turns of phrase, but overall i just think it didn't fit with the character-driven nature of the book.

This is just my preference, though, and a lot of people really enjoyed this. I'd keep away if you prefer more flowery writing in your character-driven books, but if you hate that sort of thing (which a lot of people do) then you might like this. But it just fell flat for me.