The Dutch House

A good writer doesn't need explosions or stabbings or scary monsters to tell a story. A good writer can take a poor family and an old mansion and make a mesmerizing tale of love and loss, of misunderstanding, of struggle and gain, of searching and finding. A good writer can create the family and the mansion and put them together and see what happens. A good writer can take simple things and make a story of great complexity and emotion. Ann Patchett is a good writer.

The Dutch House is the story of the Conroy family and their relationships over time with each other and with the mansion, the Dutch House. People do as people do. People give others surprises and the surprises are not what the others want. People leave and offer no explanations for their disappearances. People meet and come together for what appears to be random and unexplainable reasons. In short, The Dutch House is the story of the lives of a few people, unremarkable lives, perhaps, but also lives of depth and fascination.

(Oh, and the fact that I listened to this story as an audiobook read by the great Tom Hanks did nothing but add bonus points to my rating of the novel.)

I was entranced by this story of a boy and his sister, abandoned by their mother, orphaned by the loss of their father, put out in the world, with the strength of having each other to rely on, with the eventual and inevitable weakness of having only each other to rely on.