'The Dutch House' by Ann Patchett
Review: 2.5 stars
Last year, one of the girls in my university book club chose 'The Dutch House' as our read. Ann Patchett, I must admit, is not one of my favorite authors, but I decided to give it a try - it was so well reviewed, and so many people find her iconic.
'The Dutch House' follows Danny, the narrator, and his older sister Maeve, from childhood into adulthood in the shadow of the family mansion — an old Dutch estate their father Cyril, a real estate magnate, bought for his wife Elna. Elna never takes to it and abandons the family for charitable work in India; Cyril remarries Andrea, who arrives with two daughters and takes over the household. When Cyril dies suddenly, Andrea inherits everything and casts the siblings out.
For decades they ritualistically return, parking outside the house, smoking in the car, imagining the stepfamily's life within. Maeve nurses her resentment toward Andrea, while Danny, steered by Maeve into a medical career he never wanted, builds his own quieter prison.
This is a story of complicated family bonds. No family is perfect, and the book's argument is that whatever plaster and drywall you encase a family in, no matter how opulent, the bitterness and resentment can't be expunged by beautiful interiors. It's also about what it means to be a parent, and how siblings can keep each other locked in childhood roles long after they've grown. Maeve becomes a mother to Danny, and Danny never fully grows up — even after he marries and starts a family of his own. It's also about forgiveness. Late in the book, a rift opens between the two siblings over Danny's refusal to forgive someone from their past, and the wound deepens when that same person's choices seem, to Danny, tangled up in a tragedy in Maeve's life.
I found it an impressively detailed examination of family, but extremely slow. It felt heavy, as if the oppressive nature of the Dutch House itself were looming over me as I read, and I didn't enjoy it. Most of our group found it fairly lackluster, though one of us named it her favorite of the dozen or so books we've read over the last couple of years. This one's for patient readers who love a slow, interior family saga and read for character rather than momentum. If that's you, you'll get far more from it than I did.