Rare among Patchett's fiction, The Dutch House is written in the first person, from Danny's adult point of view. Their expulsion from paradise becomes quite literal a few years later in classic fairy tale fashion, Cyril is putty in his second wife's hands.

The wicked stepmother's arrival, even more than their mother's ghosting, marks the end of Danny and Maeve's childhood. She certainly doesn't fall in love with Cyril's two children. Patchett's eighth novel is a paradise lost tale dusted with a sprinkling of 'Cinderella,' 'The Little Princess' and 'Hansel and Gretel.'Īndrea, a pretty young widow 18 years Cyril's junior, falls in love with his house and then finagles her way into it with her two small daughters. After she flees, ostensibly to India to devote herself to the poor, her family suffers, as if 'they had all become characters in the worst part of a fairy tale,' Patchett writes. His wife, Elna, hates it, aesthetically and ethically. The house, built by a Dutch couple who made their fortune in cigarettes, is grand, with an ornate dining room ceiling, six bedrooms on the second floor, and a ballroom on the third floor. Home is the eponymous Dutch House, a 1922 mansion outside Philadelphia that their father, Cyril, a real estate mogul, bought fully furnished in an estate sale as a surprise for his wife in 1946, when Maeve was 5. Two siblings, Maeve and Danny Conroy, bond tightly after their mother leaves home when they're 10 and 3. Patchett's eighth novel is a paradise lost tale dusted with a sprinkling of Cinderella, The Little Princess and Hansel and Gretel. And despite a few small reservations, this is the story of a happy book critic: The Dutch House is another wonderful read by an author who embodies compassion. How?Īnn Patchett may well be the most beloved book person in America - not just for her irresistibly absorbing novels and memoirs (including The Patron Saint of Liars, Bel Canto and This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage) but for becoming a patron saint of readers and publishers when she opened Parnassus Books in her hometown of Nashville, Tenn.

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The dutch house ann patchett