The titular house is an old mansion in the Philadelphia suburbs, where Danny Conroy and his older sister Maeve grew up with their father Cyril, an emotionally distant real-estate magnate. Their mother is off in parts unknown, having left when Danny was a very young boy. Maeve picks up their father’s slack and become a sort of second mother to Danny, far more so than the woman Cyril makes his second wife. Their stepmother comes into the marriage with two daughters of their own, and her attempts to get Cyril to prioritize her daughters over Maeve and Danny irreparably drives a wedge between her and her step-children.
The relationship between Maeve and Danny is the crux of the novel. She’s protective but stubborn, he’s passively compliant but a little whiny about. She browbeats him into going to medical school, but he betrays her by refusing to practice, instead following his father into real estate. Their bond becomes a sore spot for Danny’s wife, Celeste, who can’t get along with Maeve despite sharing her strong preference for Danny to practice medicine.
The Dutch House is not exactly a thrill-a-minute action/adventure story. It’s an intergenerational family saga about the ways we always hurt the ones we love, the ones we shouldn’t hurt at all, to quote a great philosopher. Though Patchett can occasionally write a stunning set piece, like the scene here where Danny’s extended family attends his daughter’s play, too often long stretches of the novel pass without much incident, leaving the reader wondering why exactly they are reading this story.
Danny is the sole narrator of the novel and as such we are stuck in his perspective. While I’m sure many readers will find fault with Danny for this, that, and the other thing, Patchett sort of stacks the deck in his favor. At times the women in Danny’s life behave so abominably, or take such unreasonable positions that one can’t help but take Danny’s side. The climax of the novel rests on Danny and Maeve having wildly different reactions to a momentous event, and from my perspective anyway, Maeve’s reaction was almost impossible to understand. Patchett tries to explore the issue, but does so on a fairly surface level more representative of self-help books than prize-winning fiction.
I listened to this as an audiobook narrated by Tom Hanks, right on the heels of listening to Meryl Streep narrate Patchett’s newest novel Tom Lake. If I had a nickel for every time I’d been underwhelmed by an Ann Patchett novel narrated by a legendary, multiple-Oscar-wining actor, I’d have two nickels. That’s not a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, isn’t it?