The Dutch House: an amazing read

Just finished reading The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. I’ve never read any of her novels and I can only say that this story was totally engrossing and heart-wrenching. She writes with such skill about the things in life that anchor and drive us – family, work and home – and all their fundamental emotional associations of belonging, possession and nostalgia. Reading the book, these feelings are so strong and tangible that I was almost nauseous.

 It’s told in the words of Danny, who was born in the extraordinary Dutch House in Pennsylvania in the late 1950s. He lives there with his father, elder sister Maeve and mother, who is often absent for reasons that he can’t understand. When she leaves for good, his father remarries and for a while Danny and Maeve live together with their stepmother and her two young daughters.

[SPOILER ALERT!] Then the sudden death of Danny’s father sets off a chain of events that seem extraordinary and yet completely believable. From the intense brother-sister relationship to the reasons we marry someone and the hopes we have for our children, plus the inextinguishable longing for home, Patchett brilliantly describes a family story that has meaning for everyone.