The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

[Gina]

Today marks the beginning of our discussion of The Dutch House. I had to return the book to the library so I'll need help with the discussion. I thought this was a wonderful book on complex family relationships connected to struggles to let go of the past and move on. I rated it five stars.

[Carol]

I can barely remember it . I do remember when Mauve demanded Danny go to medical school and beyond in order to take a big chunk of the money for education. He never wanted to be a Doctor. So he was the perpetual student.

[Lyn]

My rating would be a 4.5 for The Dutch House if they allowed half stars.

I always feel so secure reading Ann Patchett, knowing that I can invest in the characters and will not end up feeling disappointed or like I wasted my time. The cover was not inviting to me, so I was surprised to enjoy the book, and to like and admire Mauve (the character in the painting).

I loved the connection portrayed of sister and brother Mauve and Danny. I usually vastly prefer reading a book rather than listening to audio, but hearing that Tom Hanks does the audio (voice of Danny) has me knowing that if/when I reread this for a book group, I'll listen to that audio, as I imagine he is perfect in that role.

I had personal difficulty with the ending, which has to do with forgiving the unforgivable, but I consider that to be a mark of good writing, in that it has started in me an inner dialogue about potential forgiveness and going past having been treated badly by someone I was once close to.

[Barbara]

I truly loved this book. I've read a number of Ann Patchett's books, definitely not all of them, but, from what I've read, this is definitely my favorite. The relationship between Danny and Maeve was the draw for me. They had to depend on each other from such an early age and nothing was ever going to compete with that relationship, particularly for Danny. I know that this happens in families. After my mother died and my dad remarried to someone I didn't like much, my siblings and I bonded in ways that I don't think would have happened otherwise.

Lynn, when you made reference to them forgiving, were you referring to Andrea or to their mother? In Andrea's case, that wasn't really her anymore so I could partially understand that though I still wouldn't have spent much time around my stepmother if that had happened. In the mother's case, I could see that the biological connection would be strong enough to motivate it. But, I'm not sure that I could forgive a mother who chose to leave me. I am close to someone who had that happen but, in that case, it was due to alcohol addiction. I really didn't understand this mother's choice.

My only criticism of the book was the character of May, Danny's daughter and her purchase of the house. That tied everything up a little too neatly in a bow. Otherwise, the book was totally deserving of the 5 stars that I gave it.

[Lyn]

Hi Barbara,
I'm also not sure I could forgive either Andrea or a mother who could do that..., but the forgiveness in the book is making me think about who forgiveness is really for, and is softening my feelings on it a little. I said "forgiving the unforgiveable," and by that I meant forgiving something you really can never understand, and maybe would not even try to - just knowing that life is fleeting and is such a personal and unique experience for everyone, and that just because we can't understand or even like someone else at all doesn't mean that they aren't in their depths a human being. Forgiveness doesn't mean you have to spend time with the person, but maybe just a letting go of the blaming inside of yourself, which can actually just free you up more to embrace your life in your own way.

Anyway, this has been a process for me with a couple of people I've been deeply hurt by in the past, as I'm pretty sensitive, but the more joy and gratitude I feel in my own life, the more I can let go of past hurt feelings and turn toward experiencing as much joy as I can in the rest of this very short life.

[Ruth]

I read this a few months ago and was hoping to skim back into a bit so I could discuss it, but that didn’t happen. Reading this discussion is bringing it back somewhat. Keep it up and I may be able to say something sensible.

[Mary]

I read this book a couple of months ago - liked it a lot. I particularly appreciated the house itself. For me, it functioned as a character. Anita Shreve had a house I always thought she used as a character; it changed over time because it recurred in several of her novels. In this book, I thought the house changed because of the relationship it had with all the other characters. I used to have a recurring dream that involved a house so maybe it has a more idiosyncratic meaning for me as a reader. In my house dreams I used to explore issues that were bothering me as I moved through the rooms. The dream plots were always weird but I looked forward to those dreams and missed them when they stopped.

[Gina]

Barbara wrote: "I truly loved this book. I've read a number of Ann Patchett's books, definitely not all of them, but, from what I've read, this is definitely my favorite. The relationship between Danny and Maeve w..."

Sometimes, I felt that Mauve held Danny back and kept him from moving forward in his life so she sometimes irritated me. I don't know if I thought that the ending was tied up too neatly because I really loved it. It satisfied my sense of justice.

[Lynn]

I enjoyed the book a lot because of the complexity of the characters and how things were revealed over time, but felt like the ending came together too fast. I described it as giving me whiplash after their mom came back into the picture and started caring for Andrea. And then suddenly May was a star and buying the house. I'm still recommending it to friends and family, though.

[Ellen K.]

Whiplash is the perfect word. I found the whole ending unbelievable and for me it really ruined the book. But I did so understand the two siblings parked there looking at the house smoking cigarettes . .

[Mary Anne]

I really like Ann Patchett. My two favorites of her books are Bel Canto and now The Dutch House.
I also found the house itself to be such a strong force, with its glass facades and the imposing portraits of the original owners over the fireplace. The reader can really feel the intimidation that the mother must have felt. Her expectation was that she would always be poor. To suddenly be dropped into this imposing environment was too much for her. But once Andrea came, the house took on a different aura, with the parties and all the trappings of wealth.
I always thought that the mother would come back into the picture.

[Mary Anne]

Sorry I’m having trouble posting on my phone.
As I was saying, I’ve heard Ann Patchett speak severs times and she always talks about Chekhov’s Rule, if a gun appears in the dresser in chapter 1, it’s going to get ignored but used before the ending. Here, the mother was gone but not dead, so her return was practically guaranteed. But I did think May’s rise to stardom was a stretch. However keeping the house in the family seemed right somehow.

[Ann D]

I read this book in October when I was in a real reading slump and had trouble concentrating. Unlike other books I tried at the time, this one totally held my interest and I got very immersed in the story. I also gave it 5 stars. I should give a disclaimer here: my 5 stars are a mark not only of "literary quality," but also how much I enjoyed the book..

Andrea was like the horrible stepmother in a fairy tale. She had no redeeming qualities. Fate certainly provided the punishment for Andrea by giving her early dementia, which completely robbed her of her personality. Much as her stepchildren hated her, this fate was worse than any they could have devised for her.

Perhaps inevitably, the stepchildren's lives were warped by their continued anger and pain. Maybe "forgiveness" would have allowed them to move on. It probably wouldn't have worked for me.

I liked Maeve, but she definitely made the things worse for Danny by forcing him into medical school and repeatedly staking out the Dutch House with him. When she died, I was happy to find out that she had apparently had a relationship with her employer and had known love.

I was confused by Elna, the mother. I wondered how she could leave, but later Patchett made me wonder how she could have stayed. I like that kind of complexity in a character, but she lost me when she insisted on taking care of Andrea.

[Jane]

I, too, read the book a while ago. We were supposed to meet and discuss it last month but almost everyone had a bed virus or the flu. We meet every month in a lovely house in Elkins Park, where The Dutch House is set. It's not a mansion like the one described, but once I got lost trying to get there and could absolutely imagine many of the houses I passed as The Dutch House. I really didn't like the book as I started. The house felt "cold," no one talked honestly to one another about what they wanted or needed. The father couldn't conceive that his wife wouldn't love the life he had just bought for her...without even showing it to her or telling her first. She had loved the purposeful life she had making do on the naval base (I've been there too, as a child I swan in the naval base pool). The children don't really talk to their parents about their feelings either. When their mother leaves, there's no comfort. And when he chooses and marries a new wife, there's no conversation or even much of an introduction. In the fifties, people often didn't talk about their feelings, they were considered "private."

I had to begin over and read the book as a fairy tale. Their new mother is clearly the wicked step-mother. And Maeve and Danny (mauve is the color) are Hansel and Gretel. By leaving everything to his new wife, he essentially abandoned the children exactly as their mother had. Again a case of not really "talking" to or knowing either of his wives, and all of the children suffering. Poor Danny, how could he possibly understand what a good marriage might look like. He and his wife didn't really get to know each other either.

For me it was the same with Where the Crawdads Sing. I read it expecting realistic fiction. I hated it. A friend loved it, so I started over. That's when I realized that it was a fairy tale. It didn't hve to be "plausible." For me, almost none of that book was.

There was more character complexity in this book, but still it was hard to read such clueless characters. And I accepted completely that Maeve was taking on the parent role, And as Jung suggests, the child lives out the unfulfilled dreams of the "parent." I was so glad Danny began to do what he wanted to do: rehab and sell houses. There was a nod to his generous heart, but I was worried he was going to go nuts with a lavish life style.

One of the things I loved...all the local references. I live in Cheltenham, 3 blocks from the Jenkintown train station. I taught most of my life at an independent Friends school in Jenkintown. The train stops and the street names are my home turf. I wanted even more.

I agree that forgiveness is the main theme of the book...but also the hiddenness of so many lives. The role stereotypes of men and women. I have more to say about the mom leaving to essentially "be another Mother Theresa." I know someone who did something like that. Glad I read the book. Not my favorite Ann Patchett...That is Bel Canto, but very interesting.

[Larry]

One of my favorite novels over the last year or two. I love the slow development of situations and the characters ... slow but all of a sudden things can change in a moment.

From Chapter 3, after Maeve has told her father that it's not her responsibility to watch after Andrea's daughters, Maeve tells Danny “This doesn’t bode well for us, Danny ... You might as well know that.”"

[Jane]

I had forgotten that comment of Andrea's, Larry. Oh, yes foreshadowing after foreshadowing.

[Ann D]

Jane, I was very interested in your comments about liking both this book and Where the Crawdads Sing better once you stopped expecting them to be realistic fiction and started thinking of them as fairy tales.

Last night my book club had a discussion of Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. I really liked that book, but it clearly had fantastic elements. Several people said they were bothered by the lack of plausibility. I felt that Edugyan was not trying to write realistic fiction, and I accepted that when I entered into the world she had created.

On the other hand, I wasn't a big fan of Where the Crawdads Sing because I thought the plot - especially the mystery part - was not believable.

So I wonder where we as readers draw the line between accepting something as believable or not.

I agree with you that the stepmother was so wicked that she was of fairy tale stature, but on the whole I thought the relationships between the characters were realistic,

Excellent point, by the way, about the lack of communication between the main characters.

[Ann D]

Larry,
You wrote "I love the slow development of situations and the characters ... slow but all of a sudden things can change in a moment."

So true. I didn't expect the mother to show up again, although there was some foreshadowing soon before she actually made her reappearance. I think Maeve actually saw her, but didn't recognize her at first. That certainly changed the whole nature of the plot.

Jane, you mentioned that you knew someone who left their family to be another "Mother Theresa." I'm very interested in hearing more.

[PattyMacDotComma]

I read it recently and enjoyed some of it but was annoyed at the repetitiveness of brother and sister picking at their old wounds so much that they kept feeling the pain and anger all over again. I was more interested in their story as children than in their adulthood, and when the mother returned and everyone become friends with everyone, I was over it! I did review it a little more politely here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jane]

My friend left, not to exactly be a "mother Theresa, but to become holy. The strangest thing is that, two days before she left, I was talking about the founder of the nuns who led Rosemont College (where I went for freshman and sophomore year). This woman and her husband essentially left their children to become a priest and nun. It's much more complicated than that, but I was talking about how awful that abandonment was. Lisa, the friend's daughter, said, "Oh, my mom could never do that. She'd miss me too much." Two days later, this friend asked us to take care of Lisa for a weekend so she could go to a retreat in Berkeley. She was part of meditative, spiritual group, we thought. She had told us people couldn't be good parents for their children unless they had purified their hearts. She never came back. Lisa would answer every call we got. After two weeks of no word, we brought Lisa to her father (who lived not too far away but rarely saw her). It was awful. We didn't know what to do and had no idea how to locate this friend. Turns out she was in a cult. She really believed she was becoming clear...but she was smart, and how she fell for what turned out to be a sexually abusive group run by two men, completely stunned me. I heard she finally left. I don't know if she ever reconnected with Lisa. I hopes so. It just let me know that people are mysterious, and can fool themselves into believing they are spiritually led, when in fact, they are clueless, as the mother in The Dutch House did.

[Ruth]

Omg, Jane. What a heartbreaking story.

[Ann D]

How horrible for Lisa! I can only imagine her sense of abandonment.

Was the founder of the order who taught at Rosemont College Cornelia Connelly? The story of a husband and wife who both left their children for the religious life really intrigued me. I found this article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corneli...

The husband, Pierce, was the one who instigated the breakup of the family. He seems the real villain of the story, especially since later he actually sued her to resume conjugal relations. Pierce and a bishop were responsible for putting the children in boarding schools. According to this article, she was heartbroken by their loss.

People can really hurt others in the name of being holy.

Going back to the book, I don't think the mother felt much remorse for leaving the children. She felt she had to do it and that they were better off without her.

What do you think?

[PattyMacDotComma]

PattyMacDotComma wrote: "I read it recently and enjoyed some of it but was annoyed at the repetitiveness of brother and sister picking at their old wounds so much that they kept feeling the pain and anger all over again. I..."

Ruth wrote: "Omg, Jane. What a heartbreaking story."

How amazingly sad, Jane, and you were left in an awful position where you can't replace a parent or even explain what's happened.

As for the book, I don't think the mother felt any remorse because in her mind, she was compelled to do what she did. It's almost as if it was beyond her control. I imagine she thought the kids were fine, in a safe place with their well-to-do father in a big house with staff, but it never occurred to her they would spend most of their growing-up time elsewhere. They obviously couldn't live with her.

Having said that, I can see adult children forgiving a parent, now that they know what adulthood is like themselves, but I still think there would be a lot of distance between them and many of the other characters that wouldn't be overcome.

[Jane]

I agree. There seems to be something in the male/ female script at that time that gave a woman, especially a woman who had children and didn't work outside the house, no agency at all with her husband. He decided the house would make her happy; he never talked to her about it or took her to see it; she had no say at all. She essentially had been erased from the marriage. I think she disappeared from herself as well as that house. She wasn't just depressed. She felt erased. He didn't love her, he loved the house. Not knowing how that must feel, I understand her need to assert her "self." Yes, it was horrible for her children, and there should have been some corner of her brain that got how horrible it would be...but essentially, she'd been told that the housekeepers would take care of everything...including the children. I think that must be similar to PTSD. Being erased is probably like that.

[Gina]

Jane wrote: "I agree. There seems to be something in the male/ female script at that time that gave a woman, especially a woman who had children and didn't work outside the house, no agency at all with her husb..."

I never thought about her being erased. That makes me feel like forgiving her just a little bit more, but you're right, most women would want to leave that situation.

[Ann D]

I think her feeling "erased" is a very good description.

[Larry]

Jane wrote: "My friend left, not to exactly be a "mother Theresa, but to become holy. The strangest thing is that, two days before she left, I was talking about the founder of the nuns who led Rosemont College ..."

Jane, one of the things that you discover when you study how con games work is that everyone can be conned ... and that intelligence alone is not always a good defense against falling victim to a con game.

[Larry]

Jane wrote: "One of the things I loved...all the local references. I live in Cheltenham, 3 blocks from the Jenkintown train station. I taught most of my life at an independent Friends school in Jenkintown. The train stops and the street names are my home turf. I wanted even more. ..."

I kept wondering about Patchett's ability to paint vividly a locale that I presume she really hadn't lived in. We probably all know that she's lived in Nashville for a number of years and spent time in LA in her younger years. But her ability to evoke NYC and Long Island is great.

[Jane]

Larry, in the interview that someone posted, Ann talks about visiting and staying with her friend who lived in Elkins Park. I assume she knew it well and probably revisited the area in the writing of this book. . I can find it in this discussion now. Maybe I saw it on other discussions of the book.

[Donna]

I just finished and have to say that the book really resonated with me emotionally and is going on my list of favorites. Patchett has been hit or miss for me but this was definitely a hit. I thought she not only painted a vivid locale, as Larry says above, but also a very true picture of male/female societal roles post WWII and into the 60s. Perhaps the "wicked stepmother" was a little too cliche but then again my own dad experienced much the same scenario - mom who abandoned her children and stepmom who turned them out. As some others have said, the ending seemed slightly too convenient, but I'm glad the house remained as a constant.

[Barbara]

Sometimes real life seems like a cliche, I must say. There are wonderful stepmothers in this world. But, for many, the other wife's children are simply too much of a threat.

[Jane]

In one of her talks, Patchett spoke about being a step-mother herself. She wondered how her step-children view her...and about all the stereotypes of step-mothers and that got her working on this book. The end didn't work for her...she wrote and rewrote it. A writer friend gave her the bare bones of a possible ending and she went home and fleshed it out. I get the sense that she's still not completely happy with it.

[PattyMacDotComma]

Jane wrote: "In one of her talks, Patchett spoke about being a step-mother herself. She wondered how her step-children view her...and about all the stereotypes of step-mothers and that got her working on this b..."

Interesting about the ending, since that's what seems to have disappointed a few people. I found the end kind of all rushed together, too, after so much early detail.

[reneeNaDaCherry]

I finished The Dutch House two days ago and it was a pleasure. I think I related more with Maeve & her brother Danny, the storyteller. Though he was years younger than his sibling, Danny was slow to forgive his mom Elna Conroy as he reflected on her lack of bonding with him. Maeve did receive much love from Elna, becoming the extension of "mom" to her little brother and stepsisters. She was their lifeline.

I'm pretty stoked that The Constant Reader group has introduced me to this author. Novels by Ann Patchett are now included on my reading list. Thanks all.

[Barbara]

Wow! Nice to hear, Renee. We're glad you're here.

[Sherry, Doyenne]

reneeNaDaBomb wrote: "I finished The Dutch House two days ago and it was a pleasure. I think I related more with Maeve & her brother Danny, the storyteller. Though he was years younger than his sibling, Danny was slow t..."

She's one of my favorite authors.

[reneeNaDaCherry]

Thanks, ladies. She's become my go-to-author as well.

[Mary Ellen]

Very late to this discussion, as I just finished the book (thank you, local library & Hoopla!).

I really enjoyed the book, most of all for its recreation of an era and certain locations - especially those in New York, where I lived for many years. As an Irish-American-Catholic myself, I felt at home in many of the settings of the book (though the father took one cliche of "my people" - the not-talking-about-important-things - to a cruel extreme!).

I thought the characters of Danny, Maeve and Celeste were well written - they seemed very real to me. The older and younger generations were less so. I think viewing Andrea, Elna and Mr. Conroy (Cyril?) as fairy tale tropes is very helpful, as they just seemed too extreme and too flat. (I am surprised Patchett didn't include a scene of Andrea deep in conversation with a mirror!)

However, as I am not a huge fan of fairy tales, the two-dimensional nature of these significant characters lessened my enjoyment of the book.

I agree with those who were disappointed in the ending. It was both too easy and improbable. I did like the interaction between Danny and Celeste at the party, though. It was the most realistic portrayal of reconciliation that the novel offered!

[Barbara]

Very glad to see your comments, Mary Ellen, particularly from your perspective as a New Yorker and Irish Catholic.

[Ann D]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Mary Ellen. They were perceptive, as usual.

[Lyn]

Thought I would chime in and say that Tom Hanks is truly wonderful as the narrator, Danny, in the audio. Listening to it now for another book group.

Reread this thread, and Jane, Bel Canto was also my favorite Patchett book.

[Donna]

I’ve read and loved the Dutch House but I’ve heard so much about the Tom Hanks narration tha I am very tempted to get the audio book.

[Mary Ellen]

Thanks, Barbara and Ann D. I really enjoyed this book and wish I'd been able to read it in time for the discussion. But, better late than never!! And I loved reading the discussion - always enriches my reading experience.