The Dutch House: A Read with Jenna Pick

I read half of The Dutch House on a Saturday evening and the second half on Sunday. The story was that good, the characters that interesting, the choices they made that captivating. I didn’t want to set it down. I just had to know how things were going to turn out, both for the characters I liked and those I detested. Here are a few thoughts that arose in my mind during the reading of this book (for my book club). When Mauve told her father “You didn’t ask me,” I stopped reading and reread it. And then I read it again. You know, that was the father’s problem. He did things for others and with others without asking them if they wanted to do it in the first place. I didn’t see him ask someone what they wanted, nor of-fer anyone choices between different options. He just directed things as they pertained to his own life path, as if he was al-ways in charge. Like buying the house and presenting it as a gift or magnum opus for his wife to just accept, with no say in the selection as modern couples do. That was just dumb. Sure, it was romantic, but come on. Really? The old days with husbands or fathers deciding, instead of seeing life as a journey with a partner, is just thoughtless to me. I find it hard to understand. So, I liked Danny. This was his story to tell, though I still wonder if this was a story of a person or a house. Let’s see. Danny points out that he was asleep to the world, as a child and young adult and husband. How about as a passenger, or student, or brother, or father? I wonder. There was so much that Danny didn’t see, didn’t ask about, wasn’t curious about. Easily seen things that he was just oblivious to. It doesn’t mean that he was stupid or self-centered, but he just didn’t look at things from someone else’s perspective. He lived life and didn’t question things or see things from other people’s point of view. I blame the father. Danny wasn’t allowed or didn’t know how to talk about women (his mother, sister, stepmother) with his father. How is it that a father (Cyril) could raise a son (Danny) and not give him opportunities to develop a skill at analyzing and talking about the opposite sex? That is just bad parenting. The father is supposed to be developing his son’s mind and preparing him for the future, one in which most sons marry someone and need to understand how to talk with (and dis-agree/argue with) them. He didn’t, and I fault him for that. Of course, the father did impart one useful life trick: “The things we could do nothing about were best put out of your mind.” I like that and try to live by that motto myself. Focus on the things you can change. And, somehow he learned that “You had to touch a hot stove only once.” So true! How many times have I seen someone act in a stupid way, and told myself that they’d never be more than an acquaintance to me, not a friend, not someone I’d choose to hang out with. How did I learn that? And from whom? I don’t know. Not my father. One thing did bother me, though. Danny seemed to re-member many times when his stepmother was kind to him, but he focused too much energy on the times when she wasn’t. He knew that this was not smart or productive, but he did it any-ways. Sure, that is typical of people, forgetting the good and remembering (and focusing on) the bad. It is why kids blame their parents for their own life’s failings and shortcomings. I can’t help it, but certain elements of this story made me think of my own life. I can connect with not having friends come over as a child. Norma and Bright didn’t have visitors, just as Danny and Mauve didn’t have friends over. No one to spend the night, or pretend with, or to run around with in the backyard, or to play hide-and-seek with. So lonely, only adults to communicate with, who seemed to be busy managing life and not imagining life (as kids often do). And when I found out that Kevin loved butterscotch Lifesavers, I smiled, because that is the one flavor I loved as a child. Loved! I have such fond memories of getting it from my grandma (though I didn’t like cherry). Did I tell others this? I don’t think so. I wasn’t allowed to ask for stuff, or encouraged to talk about what made me happy. Again, it’s the life my parents lived, and their choices that I now reflect on. Having a mother who is already dead and a father who will never read what I write, well, I am just talking to myself. And getting married on a sweltering hot July day. Yep, I did that too. It was 108 degrees on my wedding day, outdoors, with lots of family and a few friends sweltering in the heat. And when the father died at age fifty-three, it struck a chord with me, as I am fifty-three right now. No, I don’t expect to die this year. I am in excellent shape and wouldn’t even breathe heavily from climbing three flights of stairs. And being the iron in Monopoly. That was me as a child, every time. I always wanted to be the iron. No one else wanted it. It wasn’t sexy or cool, but I liked it, and how flat it was, and how it couldn’t fall over. And I could slide it. I enjoyed these moments, when my life and the life of the characters in this novel crossed paths. I hated the step-mother for so many reasons, from the earliest moments and almost to the very end. Like, when Sandy and Jocelyn weren’t given the day off to attend the funeral service, but were instead required to work in the kitchen. I was angry. How self-centered and thoughtless of a person this stepmother was. I wonder, did she even ask them if they wanted to help out or not? I doubt it. She constantly bossed people around, both kids and adults, exerting power over others in order to get what she wanted in life. Such a horrible per-son. She got what she deserved. One of her daughters refused to come see her, moving far away, while the other dropped everything and came to her aide in the final years. Would I, if I were that child? Would I quit my job and leave behind my friends, and subject myself to such drudgery for a person who is a self-centered person? Well, I don’t think that this daughter saw her mother in that way. She was loved and got whatever she wanted, so she and I aren’t viewing things from the same place. I’d probably be that other child, living far away. When Danny realized that he had limited real world coping skills because his father had protected him from what the world was capable of, I started thinking about myself. In what way did my father do the same, hiding reality from me, failing to give me coping skills for what life would surely throw at me. Did my own failures in life arise because I wasn’t given the tools as a child and young adult, and no guidance or support system as an adult, no one to talk to, no trusted advisor. I find it ironic that my father advises other people, other couples, and yet he would have been the last person I would ever have consulted on anything in life. I still don’t call him for advice. Ever. I can’t help but wonder if he knows this. It should be normal for a child to trust the opinion and guidance of their parent. I don’t. When Mauve in anger told Danny that the new family had “stolen from us,” I hit the mental pause button. Us? Really? In my mind, the one who did the work and bought the home was the father. He owned the house and its contents, not the kids who lived off of his generosity. When he died, it made sense that everything went to the wife (their stepmother). These two (a young adult and a teenager) mistakenly thought that the house should be theirs. Nope. That’s not how it works. They didn’t work for it or marry someone who had. This expectation that kids have, that their parents’ stuff is their stuff, is just wrong. Sure, you share. And you don’t kick a child out into the street (or to live with his sister). But the step-mother had the right to keep everything in the house. Danny mused about life, his own life, and his wife’s (Celeste), asking whether it really belonged to you, or to your parents and their expectations and hopes. Does a parent have that right, even if they paid for a child’s education, or paid for a car, or helped with a down payment? Do they own that child’s future? I think that kids feel obligated, like they owe their parents after so much is invested in them. But where do you stop here? Where does obligation end and freedom of choice begin? I remember when my father’s expectations of me clashed with my own vision of the future. An ultimatum ended with me walking away from my family, saying goodbye and living on my own. It was painful, but I felt that my life was my own, not only because I was paying for everything I did, but be-cause it was mine to live as I saw fit. They had their chance when they (actually, my father) were my age. I wasn’t using their money to fund my college. I was working while at school, paying for my education entirely on my own, so they didn’t have the right to tell me what to do or how to live my life. Or so I thought. I still dislike the stepmother, Andrea. I can’t see why the father married her in the first place, unless he was truly desperate. Danny wonders this too, and comes to the conclusion that his father must have just been tired of being alone. I think that he was actually unable to finish raising kids alone and manage the house. He wanted someone else to do the job. And he wanted to release some of the burden from the oldest child, Mauve. But what about the mother? It still shocks me that neither child looked for their mother once they became adults. I hear of kids doing that, searching for a parent who abandoned them in childhood, reconnecting. Danny and Mauve weren’t told that their mother was dead, just crazy (by the father). Didn’t they question that, or want to find out more? And the whole keeping it a secret from his sister. Why would Danny do that after talking with Fluffy? He didn’t have that right. Just like the father who made decisions for others without consulting them. Like father, like son. I liked it when Mauve justified her life by saying “I like my job.” Just as she liked her house, and liked her solitude, and liked smoking, and liked checking up on the old house and its occupants. No one had the right to tell her that she wasn’t happy. I connected to this in my own life, as I like my life. When a “friend” tries to get me to do something, thinking that this new event or whatever will make me happy, I just shake my head and move on. I am happy. I don’t want other people to try to “fix” me. I am happy as I am. When Mauve pointed out that she had to choose between feeling angry and bitter or feeling happy and lucky, I liked that. Too often I choose to feel the misery, to relive the past and dwell on how painful an event was instead of just moving on and living in the moment. I think that we all do that. “There is a finite amount of time.” So true! So true. It is stupid to feel anger over something that is now in the past. It makes sense to focus on the present and get the most pleasure out of what it has to offer. I am still kinda annoyed with the mother. She left. But, I know that she was also forced out, by the father, given an ultimatum. Man, what was so wrong with this couple and their life, and their inability to talk it out, or to change course? I must be careful not to superimpose modern ways of coupling with a time in the past, but I can’t help it. It is who I am today. I still remember the early part of the book talking about the past, and how we can never see it as it was because we’re too influenced by the present. So true. I did like how the mother served those who needed to be served, and didn’t just help the ones who make her feel good about herself. It is something to think about, holding both thoughts together in your mind: abandoning the family and helping others. Most people must choose one or the other, to understand her suffering or to blame her for her life path. I think it is wiser to hold both ideas simultaneously, and allow them to exist together. In conclusion, I still wonder about that house. So much in this story is centered around the house. From the beginning until the end, it was a center piece of the story, defining people and the choices they made, mentioned, described, connected. It was both an empty shell in need of people and a house filled with noise. It was both a hive of pain for some and a place of comfort for others. It was a place to hate as well as a place so longingly remembered. Two opposing ideas held at the same time. I found it pleasing to see the house go from a party place before the family moved in for adults, surviving kids, those kids having kids of their own, and then being bought by a kid who reached adulthood and turning it again into a place for parties. turning back into a party place. The house is happy again, filled with a purpose and no longer lonely. I liked the house from the start, and thought how cool it would be to live there. If you want to read a fun book, then this is one you should buy. I did, and I am glad for the experience.

According to the book jacket of The Dutch House, the novel is a “dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past.” And indeed, the two main characters – the supremely self-confident and protective older sister Maeve and her younger brother, Danny – are obsessively connected to the lavish estate purchased by their father in the Philadelphia suburbs. Their mother has left them to their own wiles and in her place, a younger wicked stepmother and her own two daughters have moved in with their father. It is only a matter of time until they are exiled. And although they follow different paths, it is only when they come together that they are complete. I had a little trouble tapping into the male voice of Danny at first (for several pages, I thought the first-person narrator was female), but gradually, I accepted his voice because I was caught up in the narrative. Ann Patchett is a natural-born storyteller and here, like in her last book, Commonwealth, she ambitiously traces a family through a couple of generations. Both books center around an action (the exile in Dutch House, an illicit kiss in Commonwealth), and both deal with “blended families” that in reality do not blend. At the time Commonwealth was published, Ann Patchett called it her “autobiographical first novel” and I suspect that some of Dutch House is mined from those same murky areas of childhood – the complications of extended families, the theft of certain memories of childhood, the borders between realities and how we remember. It’s difficult to review the way I want to without spoilers, so I’ll just say this: I also saw parallels to religious parables. In a sense, the Dutch House is Eden – that wonderful paradise of childhood of which teens and young adults are eventually cast out. There is a central character who sets herself up to be a saint with an aberrant desire to be “of help”, and Ann Patchett nails it when she says that saints are generally despised by those who really know them. And, there is a quest for redemption. Although I have quibbles – the male voice, the somewhat rushed ending (along with certain aspects of that ending), I do think this is one of Ann Patchett’s better books. It’s not quite as good as Bel Canto (which, to my mind, is her best) nor is it as unrealistic as State of Wonder (which many readers enjoyed and I did not). It’s definitely worth reading and I give it a 4.5 rating.

Ann Patchett has long been a master of the modern family saga, and her latest novel, The Dutch House, is no exception. I enjoy Patchett’s writing immensely because she always seems to be able to make an ordinary life extraordinary. Most people will not live a whirlwind life of fame and fortune; instead we will live relatively “normal” and, at times, somewhat boring lives. Patchett doesn’t write for the famous or for the rugged adventurers – she writes for and about ordinary people, and she does it with ease and grace. In The Dutch House, we readers are transported into the world of Danny and Maeve Conroy, two siblings with an unbreakable bond whose lives are also marred by tragedy. The Conroy family lives in an enormous mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Philadelphia) referred to as the Dutch House in homage to its original owners, the now-deceased VanHoebeeks. Early in the novel, ten-year-old Maeve and three-year-old Danny are abandoned by their mother Elna, a woman who has no other ambition in life than to help the poor and who, in consequence, cannot stand living in the opulent Dutch House. Elna’s departure leaves the door open for the patriarch of the family, Cyril, to remarry. His unfortunate choice of taking a young woman named Andrea as his second wife, and his untimely death when Danny (our narrator) is only a teenager, will ultimately lead to the expulsion of the Conroy children from the fairytale Dutch House and will alter the course of their lives forever. One of my favorite parts of reading this book was coming to truly love Danny and Maeve and to care about what was happening in their lives over the course of the five decades the book encompasses. As much as I loved the siblings, I despised their stepmother Andrea with a passion. The ability of an author to make us feel for the characters is crucial to the enjoyment and success of a story, and Patchett certainly doesn’t disappoint here. Because of her detailed, compelling, and heartfelt writing I felt completely immersed in the lives of the Conroys and savored each detail, from the reason for failed and strained relationships down to the story of the painting of Maeve as a young girl – the very painting which graces the cover of the novel. If you are a fan of Ann Patchett or of sweeping family sagas, give this wonderful book a read.

I have loved all of Ann Patchett’s books and I must say that this one is my favorite. I was hooked at the first sentence and remained hooked until the end. This is one of those rare books that you want to rush to finish, but at the same time you do not want it to end. Reading this book is like a master class in story telling and writing. And the author loves dogs and co-owns an independent bookstore! What more do you need to know to pick up this book? Set in suburban Philadelphia over the course of almost 60 years, this is the story of Maeve and her baby brother Danny. The story is narrated by Danny beginning when he is 8 years old. Maeve and Danny’s mother left the family and is apparently in India helping the poor. Their father Cyril made his fortune buying and selling properties. He is a mostly absent father so the children are raised by their housekeepers and previously a nanny. Cyril’s grandest purchase was the Dutch House, a ridiculously opulent mansion that intrigues the children and scares off their mother. The book opens with the appearance of Andrea, who will soon be their evil stepmother. Andrea only has eyes for the house and for her two younger daughters. When Cyril dies, Maeve and Danny discover that they are left with nothing. No home and no money, except a trust fund for Danny’s education. Maeve has already graduated college, has a job, and lives on her own. She pushes Danny to use as much of the trust as possible, which he does in spite of his own future plans. The story follows Maeve and Danny as they become adults, always haunted by their past and by the Dutch House. There are so many wonderful themes about family, forgiveness, relationships, and memory. Do we remember things as they really were or are memories colored by who we are? Both Maeve and Danny have different memories of their parents and also different experiences. A good part of this novel is about how the two of them put the pieces of their family together. It is also about the sacrifices they make for each other. This is a powerhouse of a book. The writing is perfect, the characters are interesting, and the story remains compelling all the way through. Unlike Ms. Patchett, I do not have the words to express how wonderful this book is. You will just have to read it for yourself!

Ms. Patchett does many good things in this book. Structurally, the beginning and middle are strongest. The actions and characters in the beginning are strong enough to carry the book. They have to because the ending happens quickly and, somewhat disappointingly for me, too easily. I'd have liked to have seen more conflict at the end. Or at least more difficulty. It's also interesting to read a book written by a woman in the voice of a man. In this era of accusations of "cultural appropriation" it's refreshing. A woman writing in a man's voice, or a man in a woman's for that mater, is refreshing and shows a side of the character that the reader might not expect. Danny doesn't often react like a typical male character in this book, but that may be because of the influence of his sister. The book handles Mauve's Type 1 diabetes well and shows how difficult it was in those days before Type 2 made it an industry. But there's one mistake pertaining to this. There's a scene in 1968 when Danny is at Columbia in which they test her blood. Personal blood testing devices were not available until 1980 or 1981. I know. I've had Type 1 for over 55 years. Maybe I'm wrong about the timing of the scene in the book. But you'd think some research would clear that up. The author probably asked a doctor. Doctors know diseases from books and charts. They don't live with them and in the day to day world of a chronic disease they know less than they think they do. Sorry, docs. But you're like a car dealership. Patients are the mechanics who deal with the car every day. But it's a sweet book and it makes you feel pretty good. She' a great stylist, a great novelist.

I am really not sure what I expected in this book but thought I’d give it a try. It was very wordy(?) descriptive but seemed to limp along at first but did become enjoyable in the balance of the book. The character grew and expanded. I hated the last few chapters but I did read to the end. I know it was fiction but not every story had to end well.

[I like the rhythm of the first few paragraphs in this story:] The first time our father brought Andrea to the Dutch House, Sandy, our housekeeper, came to my sister's room and told us to come downstairs. "Your father has a friend he wants you to meet." "Is it a work friend?" Maeve asked. She was older and so had a more complex understanding of friendship. Sandy considered the question. "I'd say not. Where's your brother?" "Window seat," Maeve said. Sandy had to pull the draperies back to find me. "Why do you have to close the drapes?" I was reading. "Privacy," I said, though at eight I had no notion of privacy. I liked the word, and I liked the boxed-in feel the draperies gave when they were closed. [To me, the rhythm of a written composition, and that includes stories, is every bit as important as the rhythm of a musical composition. And the rhythm of this start catches my attention.] But let's consider my reaction to this book. The first thing, of course, is the title. Not THE BOOK OF DANIEL or MAEVE, MY GUARDIAN, but THE DUTCH HOUSE. It validates one of my theories about well-written stories: those stories have the setting as the "master character", and the character of all the people contained in that setting is derived from that. It's something I developed as a result of studying scene design as a Theatre major. In order for the play to function properly, the setting must delineate the relationships of the characters, each one to the other, as the setting tells us how each of them confront each other, what they believe, what they enjoy, et cetera. The setting also encapsulates the movement of the story through time, from the beginning of the story's action to its final destination in any given location. I believe good stories do this, and good writers, like Ann Patchett, demonstrate this principal as their stories unfold. It's a Dutch house, but the occupants are Irish, and everywhere I've looked so far in this story, the setting created by Patchett validates my theory. It's the kind of story that should be read by anyone wanting to write a story, so they can learn from its example. I've read the first 99 pages, I love how it is so strongly a character-generated story, and I think it's brilliant! Absolutely incredible how good this novel is! I wondered why we heard early on about two people we knew little to nothing about until this late in the story: Maeve and Danny's mother and Fiona, [i.e.: Fluffy]. Structural control is amazing here. I was reading all the stuff about Danny's tutelage under Dr. Able, and toward the end of it, I was starting to think that it was straying a bit off topic when, BOOM! The author puts us back on the street across from The Dutch House! I kept thinking that mention of the first wife and Fiona were errors in structure until we met Fiona again at the Hungarian place! The plot is, as you know, very intricate, and if we were both reading this at the same time, I probably wouldn't mention the re-introduction of both characters.

Very well written with realistic nicely developed characters. But I haven't been this sad about how a story ends since Dumbledore died! It is unforgivable to me that the young mother leaves her children, when she could have raised them and helped aid the poor locally. She thought her kids would be ok if she left, but you know what? They weren't. And it doubly disappoints me that she "leaves" them a second time to care for the stepmother who had once devastated the same children by throwing them out of their family home. I read books to escape and this author truly takes you away! I just hoped for an ending I could smile about. Will definitely read all her other books:). But for now I'm stomping around my house with a little bit of salt.