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Ann Patchett’s bestselling novel, The Dutch House, is a warmhearted modern fairytale that feels particularly luxurious in an era where urgent writing has become the standard. In her eighth novel, Patchett tells the decades long tale of Danny and Maeve Conroy, who spend their youth in the foreboding mansion nicknamed ‘The Dutch House’, with their icy father and wicked stepmother. The home had originally been purchased by their father, Cyril, as a gift to their young mother, whose loathing for the size and opulence of the house led her to desert her young children when they are just ages 3 and 10. Cyril remarries a few years later, and his new wife Andrea, 18 years his junior, seems more in love with the home than anything. Andrea takes advantage of Cyril’s untimely death, driving her stepchildren out of the home, and bleeding the family for every dollar they have. Thus, the house becomes a vessel for Maeve and Danny’s buried traumas, symbolizing cavernous emptiness and the fleeting nature of material possessions. Danny reflects during his and Maeve’s shared reminiscence of their childhood home, “We pretended that what we had lost was the house, not our mother, not our father.”
The novel is narrated by Danny retrospectively, retelling snapshots of his childhood with a sentimental and sometimes roving voice. The narration style lends clarity to many of the troubling incidents of Danny’s youth, and as he navigates the series of unfortunate events that has befallen him, it seems as if the years have lent him a greater insight into the psyche of the adults in his life that had seemed so inscrutable throughout his childhood. Most notably, time gives Danny the opportunity to examine the ways in which his father’s story mirrors his own. Even into adulthood, Danny is chasing the man he know so little about, as he chooses to abandon his career as a doctor in order to pursue real estate development just like his father had. As a child, he imagined taking over his father’s business, and when his stepmother sells off the business after Cyril’s death, Danny is left without purpose or passion. For Danny, taking up real estate is a way to recapture his childhood connection with his father, and to reenact his most cherished childhood memories.
While Cyril is a crucial character as Danny’s mirror/foil, the center of this narrative is Danny’s older sister, Maeve, who is Danny’s protector and only companion. Maeve’s role as a caretaker transforms throughout their lives, in their youth she is Danny’s surrogate mother, but as they age she becomes more of an advisor and companion of the mind, a trustworthy business associate and confidante. Maeve is one of the most sensitively wrought characters that I have read in a long time, and her compassion for those in need is only surpassed by her total devotion to her brother. She refuses to judge the mother that abandoned her, and forms strong bonds with the housekeepers and nanny from her youth, tirelessly working for the benefit of those she loves. As Danny struggles to navigate relationships with women, or with childhood figures who have reemerged in his life, it is his sister to whom he consistently turns for guidance.
The conflict-free closeness between Maeve and Danny seems difficult to imagine between siblings, and can read as a bit of an oversimplification or romanticization, but Patchett’s narrative is sensitive and nuanced enough to more than make up for its sweetness. In fact, it feels refreshing to meet two characters with a pure connection and devotion, it reminds us what is best in humanity. This novel avoids the trap of excessive sentimentality and base romanticization with its nuanced humanity and sensitive characterization. Patchett’s practiced gift for prose transforms something that could read as a fluff novel into a warm and engaging human story. In The Dutch House, Patchett reminds readers that families of all shapes and sizes and composition are the first and most vital home an individual may find.