The Dutch House
In the years after World War II, Cyril Conroy quietly buys a grand estate outside Philadelphia, the Dutch House, as a surprise for his wife, who is so appalled by its glass-fronted opulence that she eventually walks out and leaves him there with their two children. Danny and his older sister Maeve grow up in those rooms under a stepmother who, after Cyril's death, throws them out. For the next fifty years the siblings return again and again to park outside the house in a rented car and talk, about the mother who left, the father who collected buildings, the fortune they were written out of, and the lives they are trying to build in spite of it. Ann Patchett's novel is a patient, sharply felt story about sibling love and the long half-life of childhood.
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After their mother left, Danny Conroy and his older sister Maeve grew up in the famous Dutch House outside Philadelphia. When their father remarries and dies, his second wife throws them out, and Maeve and Danny park outside it for years.
The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Ann Patchett previously won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Bel Canto. The audiobook of The Dutch House, narrated by Tom Hanks, also gained widespread attention.
Both novels by Ann Patchett address blended families and inheritance across generations. The Dutch House (2019) is more interior and more focused on a single sibling pair; Commonwealth (2016) is broader. Both stand on their own.
The Dutch House was written by Ann Patchett, published in 2019 by Harper, An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.
The Dutch House is 337 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Dutch House takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
The Dutch House is a standalone novel by Ann Patchett, not part of a series.
The Dutch House is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.