Book Review: The Dutch House

The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett

The blurb on this book's dust jacket calls it "a dark fairy tale about two smart people ... who are forced to confront the people who left them behind." Well, perhaps. I prefer to call it a fine story, well told, about a family growing and changing in the second half of the past century.

Look, this is a great book. But to make it something larger, to analyze all its symbolism, to liken it to a dark fairy tale -- a mythical story outside our world that is meant to deceive -- really takes it too far. Instead, it's a series of anecdotes that join to make up a wonderful story.

The novel's star is the Dutch House, an ostentatious mansion on the outskirts of Philadelphia. Cyril Conroy, an up-and-coming real-estate magnate with a wife and two young children, buys the house when the original owners -- the VanHoebeeks, a wealthy Dutch family -- sell it lock, stock, and barrel. Seriously, he buys everything, including the furniture, dishes, and the portraits of the VanHoebeeks above the fireplace mantels. Even the previous family's domestic help come with the house. The new owners move in, and never change a thing, except to commission new portraits of Conroy and his wife. But his wife refuses to sit, and thus the artist paints the daughter, Maeve.

The story then follows this strange family -- a workaholic, distant father, a mother who up and leaves, a nanny who is fired, a step-mother who hates her step-children -- through the next several decades.

The son, Danny, is the passive narrator who tells the story, but lets the action happen around him. Maeve is the active protagonist, the dominant character, the driver of the tale.

It is well written, compelling, and at times surprisingly funny. The characters are multi-faceted and well drawn. Danny and Maeve, upon whom the story revolves, have a tender, loving, yet uneven  relationship that extends over the half-century of the book. Maeve, the older sister, is Danny's mentor, adviser, and substitute parent.

While the narratives sometime jump around in time, they mesh well. An opening tale leads to a backstory, which brings us up to the present. Overall, the story moves forward as the family members age and come to terms with their pasts.