A cautionary tale that explores what it is to have everything, and then to lose everything. The obsession that comes from having something taken from you, and the inability to move on. At the centre of this family drama lies The Dutch House: more a piece of artwork than a home, which seems to “float several inches above the hill it sat upon”, named after the provenance of the original owners and later home to property magnate Cyril Conroy and his family.
But the house is a “folly”, the object of both desire and shame. Cyril’s first wife is so overwhelmed by the ostentatious luxury that she becomes a shadow of her former self, eventually packing up one day and leaving her husband and two children behind. Cyril’s second wife is so obsessed with the house that the children believe that it is part of her reason for marrying their father, and when Cyril succumbs to a heart attack she sews up their inheritance, keeping the house for herself and her two daughters.
Moving back and forth across the decades between three generations of the Conroy family, Ann Patchett’s Pulitzer finalist is a sprawling observation of the lives of two people who cannot overcome their past. Unable to let go of the injustice done to them, the Conroy children let their obsession with their childhood home shape their future, to the detriment of everything else around them. Turning the typical American fairytale on its head, The Dutch House is a tale of loss and longing, a blending of past and present and an exploration of the loss of agency over one’s own life.
It’s hard to put into words exactly what it is that I love so much about this novel, but it’s definitely one that I will be adding to the re-read pile: I imagine it gets better and better with each reading.
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