The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

With the intended purpose of escape from the political and social turmoil surrounding us and wanting a work that would entertain/ distract from reality, the November book pick was Ann Patchett’s latest work, The Dutch House.  And so it was that on December 1, 2020 – deep into the pandemic with cases surging at an alarming rate – Saran, Sheri, Joanie, Annie, Libby, Mary Lib and Margie discussed this novel via Zoom. To this end, most of the group felt the objective was met.

The Dutch House is the anchor point pulling together the life story of brother and sister, Danny and Maeve. Told from Danny’s perspective, it begins with them as children, abandoned by their mother, living with their mostly detached father and on the brink of becoming Andrea’s step-children The vivid and detailed descriptions of the house’s interior as well as the effects of the house on its inhabitants are what lead the reader into the relationships and circumstances that become this book’s storyline.

Margie felt she was caught up by the story and character development from the very first chapter and relished the descriptive quality contained within it .Maddy enjoyed the book; Annie appreciated the storytelling; Mary Lib commented that it was a lovely change of pace from everything going on. While Paige praised the storytelling, she felt the characters were implausible. Sheri and Saran were in agreement on this point. Whereas Sheri found the story fun and entertaining, she was disappointed in the character development. Saran thought some characters were not well developed (especially the mother) and had difficulty understanding them. Joanie was intrigued by how the book was put together while others saw it as a drawback particularly the time gaps between the sections and with too much happening at the very end.

Such opposing reactions led to good discussion of the characters, and of themes contained within. Libby talked about a home providing a sense of place for what happens there and many of us talked about memories of experiences with various homes and how those memories are still so alive. Another theme was that of memory and how we look upon the past.

Interestingly, Margie chose an Ann Patchett book in 2017. In that summary it was stated that a common thread among her books is that Ann Patchett throws two different groups of people together to create a community. It seems that she does this once again in The Dutch House.  And once again, she has created a work that was met with such diverse reactions and opinions from us. Annie relayed a quote to me that she remembered (to the best of her ability). It went something like this: “…good fiction doesn’t always fill in the spaces and provide all the answers. That is up to the reader’s imagination…” Based on our discussion I think we can safely say that Ann Patchett did not fill in all the spaces in this book – and because of that you either liked the book – or you didn’t!