“Danny and Maeve Conroy, brother and sister exiled from their childhood home by their stepmother, spend the next five decades parked on the curb across the street.”
What's in this book
- Ann Patchett's 2019 novel — a brother and sister exiled from childhood home park on the curb for fifty years
- Pulitzer Prize finalist 2020; the Patchett many readers cite as their actual favorite
- 352 pages of close-first-person Danny narration across five decades
- Sustained Maeve-and-Danny sibling relationship carries the structural emotional weight
- Tom Hanks audiobook is one of the most-discussed audio productions of the past five years
- For readers of Bel Canto, Tom Lake, Commonwealth, and contemporary American literary commercial fiction
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The Dutch House is Ann Patchett's 2019 eighth novel, the Pulitzer Prize finalist that established the novel many Patchett readers cite as their actual favorite of her catalog. The structural premise is the Dutch House itself — a grand mid-twentieth-century estate near Philadelphia bought by Cyril Conroy in 1946 — and the brother-and-sister pairing of Maeve and Danny Conroy who grow up there until their stepmother Andrea exiles them after Cyril's death. The novel runs across the next five decades through Danny's first-person narration, with the brother-and-sister pair returning over and over to park on the curb across the street from the Dutch House across the entirety of their adult lives. Danny eventually becomes a real-estate developer; Maeve, who never marries, works as the controller for a small frozen-food company across the entire arc.
Patchett's structural method is the patient first-person Danny narration across the entire five-decade arc, with the Maeve-and-Danny sibling relationship carrying the structural emotional weight that the actual Dutch House symbolism serves as the structural setting for. The novel reads in the patient literary commercial register Patchett's career has been built on and that distinguishes the Dutch House from the more event-heavy structural conceits of Bel Canto and Commonwealth. The Andrea-and-the-stepsisters subplot in the back third is one of the most carefully written contemporary American literary fiction treatments of late-life family reconciliation and the structural moral payoff the novel has been quietly building toward. The Tom Hanks audiobook is one of the most-discussed audio productions of the past five years and is the format most Patchett readers recommend for first reading.
Recommended as required contemporary American literary fiction reading, as the structural Patchett masterwork in the literary-commercial register, and for fans of Bel Canto, Tom Lake, and Commonwealth. The Tom Hanks audiobook is the definitive audio production and the right format for first reading. Five stars without reservation.
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