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The words Dutch and house have the same number of letters; I knew it would look really good. It’s a book about wealth and poverty, and the sort of whiplash of going back and forth between those two states. It didn’t quite bring the story to a satisfying conclusion for me, but it’s such a well-written and engrossing family drama that I enjoyed it very much anyway.
Book Excerpt
In 1963, Cyril dies of a heart attack, and Andrea inherits everything except for an educational trust for the children. Andrea forces Danny to leave the house two weeks after Cyril’s death, forcing Maeve to raise him. Eager to get what little revenge she can by draining the educational trust, Maeve compels Danny to go to an expensive boarding school, pre-med at Columbia, and medical school. Patchett's previous novel, Commonwealth (2016), was her most autobiographical, and it also involved blended families and children left too much to their own devices.
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During this time the two reminisce about their childhoods. When they are in their 40s they finally see Andrea outside the house and realize that they are preoccupied with the past and decide to stop coming to the Dutch House. A few years later Maeve has a heart attack and to Danny and Maeve's surprise their mother, Elna, returns to nurse Maeve. Danny is still angry at his mother, whom he has no memories of, but Maeve is reinvigorated by her presence.
Uncle Bill's Pancake House
The greatest lack I think in my body of work, if, God forbid, you were to read it all, is that I don’t write villains. I have this shortcoming that whenever I get too close to anybody, I become sympathetic to them. That was why I wrote this book in first person, because all Danny knows is what Andrea chooses to show him. This would also be a fantastic book for book clubs to debate over the ending and discuss whether it makes them think about the roles they’ve cast the people in their lives into.
Freshly Brewed Tea
Though Danny is financially successful Celeste grows increasingly bitter that he never used his medical degree and puts the blame for the strain of their marriage on Maeve. Danny pursues an on-again, off-again relationship with local girl Celeste Norcross, adds to his real estate holdings, and in 1977 marries Celeste. In the space of two years, Danny and Celeste have two children (May and Kevin). Danny completes medical school but decides to continue building his real estate business, which grows substantially during the 1980s. Shortly after this episode and seeing Andrea on the front lawn of the Dutch House, the siblings decide to stop surreptitiously visiting the Dutch House because they want to move on from the past.
Fluffy becomes their nanny, and Sandy and Jocelyn are a part of their lives, too. Maeve and Danny still stake out the Dutch House, but mostly out of nostalgia. One night after almost being seen by Andrea, they agree it's time to stop visiting. In The Dutch House, Maeve and Danny are siblings who grow up in a grand house in Elkins Park.
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Elna decides to take care of Andrea out of a sense of charity, a decision that causes a rift with Maeve. By the end of the novel, Danny and Celeste are divorced, and May, who has grown up to be a successful actor, buys the Dutch House. The novel closes with Danny attending a party that May throws at the Dutch House. The Dutch House is the eighth novel of Ann Patchett, an award-winning author of contemporary fiction. Set in the Dutch House—located in the outskirts of Philadelphia—and New York, the novel is literary fiction with fairy-tale elements.
James said that the house of fiction has “not one window, but a million”, depending on who is looking at the scene, and Patchett’s elegantly constructed narrative often reads like a dramatisation of this idea. For years after they are banished from the Dutch House, Maeve and Danny make a ritual of parking outside their former home to watch the comings and goings of Andrea and their stepsisters through its vast windows. “Do you think it’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was? ” asks Danny, now in college, where Maeve forces him to endure years of expensive medical training simply to drain the educational fund that would otherwise devolve to Andrea’s daughters.
When Cyril dies of a heart attack while inspecting a building site, and with Maeve already at college, Andrea ejects Danny from the house and into his sister’s care, having already sewn up their inheritance. An incensed Maeve persuades Danny to “bilk” the educational trust fund – intended to provide for Andrea’s two daughters too – by applying to the costly medical school at Columbia University. Danny begrudgingly accepts his mother’s late appearance in his life, mostly to appease Maeve, whose heart attack precipitates Elna’s return. The other elements of his life—his successful real estate business, his children (a son, Kevin, and a precocious daughter, May), his lukewarm marriage—fail to command half the attention his sister does. It is tiring to Danny’s wife, Celeste, whose mutual dislike of her sister-in-law occasionally reads like a sitcom trope, adding conflict to work that often functions like a love song. When Maeve refuses Danny’s resentment of their mother, challenging him to “[g]row up,” their argument has all the tension, emotion, and knowingness that Danny and Celeste’s relationship seems to lack.
Their mother decides to stay in the house and nurse Andrea which horrifies Maeve. Elna continues to nurse Andrea and Danny at least partially blames her for his sister's death. Nicely crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside with conspicuous buttermilk flavor, these are pancakes prepared just right. It doesn’t hurt that they are served with a side of salted clarified butter that facilitates a solid drenching. This down and dirty family-run restaurant has been serving West LA since 1982.
He learns that his step-sister Norma was forced to become a doctor to compete with Danny and that his younger step-sister, Bright, became estranged from her mother after what she did to the Conroy children. The former household staff return to work at the Dutch House and Danny brings his children for visits where his older daughter May falls in love with the house. Danny Conroy grows up in an elaborate mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania known as the Dutch House, and is raised by his real estate investor father and his older sister Maeve; his mother had abandoned the family years earlier. The family-owned S&W Country Diner operates in Downtown Culver City, and is completely retro with the 1950s-esque counters, decor, and longtime cash-only policy. Its old-school feel even filters through the menu with the pancakes. Four fluffy platter-sized cakes come in one stack, and it might be best to share unless truly hungry.
Though Danny and Maeve had a lonely childhood in the house May uses it to entertain rich and famous celebrities. People are trying to hold up their light, and God love them. But it’s a very, very tough time, and this book definitely came out of the presidential election, and the celebration of wealth, the idea that nothing could be better than being rich.
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