March 26 2020

The Dutch House (2019)
By Ann Patchett

Author Ann Patchett's Bel Canto is a novel about a group of diplomats and an opera star celebrating a birthday, when they are suddenly taken hostage by terrorists in an unnamed South American country.  Expecting something similar, I was surprised by The Dutch House, a story on a much more intimate scale, of a sister and brother, left as orphans when their father dies.  Their mother had deserted the family when Danny was an infant, and he grows up spending his spare time at the work sites, and learning the ropes of the construction industry, at the various real estate projects his father owns. But when Mr Conroy dies, the siblings' stepmother throws them out of their house, the beautiful "Dutch House" in a Philadelphia suburb, insisting she did not sign on to raise them.  Maeve is already in college, and looks out for her teenage brother Danny (the narrator). Left only with a bequest to cover his education, Maeve sends Danny to a posh boarding school.  He goes on to college at Columbia, then NYU med school always keeping in close touch with Maeve, visiting her in her small house in another Philadelphia suburb where she works as an accountant for a Bird's Eye frozen foods type business.  Their visits almost always include a stop across the street from the Dutch House, just to remember and wonder.

Danny marries Celeste, an elementary school teacher from another Phila suburb, and they settle in NYC, where Danny throws away his med school education to follow his calling a a really estate developer, like his dad, taking a first chance on a property in an area he thinks has potential to gentrify.  They have a daughter and son, he becomes quite successful, though Celeste sometimes resents the strong pull she feels Maeve exerts over Danny.  By chance, Danny runs into "Fluffy", a former nanny, whom Danny and Celeste hire as their own nanny, and Fluffy puts him in touch with Sandy and Jocelyn, former maid and cook at the Dutch House, who were like parents to Danny and Celeste.  Soon, another former DH resident comes back into their lives, but Danny is none too pleased about it.

While it may not sound like a page-turner plot, I loved this story about siblings and could really empathize with all of the characters.  The story involves many instances where a character's decision affected his/her or their family's future, and it would be a good book group choice.