The Dutch House

Title: The Dutch House
Author: Ann Patchett
Reviewer: Christina Coates
 
“But we overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.”
The Dutch House is a story of how the past can define us, hold us, and grip us in its thrall. It’s also about values — that your job and 

owning a fancy house doesn’t necessarily make you happy. Rather doing what you love and living where your heart desires is more likely to bring satisfaction. This is a fairytale, a modern Hansel and Gretel story, full of archetypes and doubles — there’s an enthralling house and slums, a disappearing or abandoning mother, a wicked stepmother, a controlling father, two sets of entwined siblings. It’s where Henry James meets the Great Gatsby.
Maeve and her brother Danny cannot let go of the house they were ejected from. For many years they return over and over to sit and watch it from the street. The house and their past holds them, the narrative they tell is constantly overlaid onto the house and what happened there. They can’t really move on or live the lives they really want to. The narrative also traps the other characters. It’s only when they’re forced to confront the past and the one person they most fear are they able to unravel the threads and see the people they really are.