Dutch House

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2020 

 

A SUNDAY TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER An unforgettably powerful new novel of the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go - from the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth and Bel Canto 'The book of the autumn. The American author of Commonwealth (brilliant) and Bel Canto (even better) releases perhaps her finest novel yet' - Sunday Times 'The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something' - John Boyne "'Do you think it's possible to ever see the past as it actually was?' I asked my sister. We were sitting in her car, parked in front of the Dutch House in the broad daylight of early summer." Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house's former owners in the frames of their oil paintings. Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve's lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother's: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known. Told with Ann Patchett's inimitable blend of humour, rage and heartbreak, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale and story of a paradise lost; of the powerful bonds of place and time that magnetize and repel us for our whole lives.

Review: A wonderful hypnotic masterpiece of a novel. The best book I've read in years -- Rosamund Lupton

One of my top favourite contemporary writers. I don't think that there's a book of hers that I haven't put down at the end and been haunted by for weeks after * Gillian Anderson *

The Dutch House is a novel that assures Patchett, alongside John Irving and Anne Tyler, a place as one of the foremost chroniclers of the burdens of emotional inventory and its central place in American lives -- Catherine Taylor * Financial Times *

Indelibly poignant in its long unspooling perspective on family life, The Dutch House brilliantly captures how time undoes all certainties * Observer *

An intimate and transporting novel ... The Dutch House is a novel brimming with pain and tenderness in which Patchett's gifts as a storyteller are on full display ... A searching, exquisitely wrenching novel about family, sacrifice and obsession * Sunday Times *

One of the most celebrated novelists of our times ... But it is her new book, widely billed a one of this autumn's best new reads, where she truly comes into her own * Sunday Times Magazine *

Impeccably fine ... A thoughtful, quietly profound book * i paper *

The Dutch House offers ... A simultaneous awareness of human fragility and human resilience * Daily Telegraph *

She uses her signature blend of wry humour, rage and regret in a tale of siblings who cannot escape the shadow of their childhood home * i *

Masterly * The Times *

An outstanding novel, wryly funny, heart-breakingly sad and entirely engrossing -- Eithne Farry * S Magazine *

We're calling it now: The Dutch House will be the book of the autumn ... Her finest novel yet * Sunday Times *

Few novelists today combine such a forensic eye with an acute and humane understanding of human nature. I would read Ann Patchett's shopping list -- Jojo Moyes

Patchett is a master at pacing and detail ... The question of what makes a home pervades this gripping book -- Erica Wagner * New Statesman *

She rivals Tyler for emotional acuity -- Anthony Cummins * Metro *

Ann Patchett writes novels that quietly and thoroughly devastate the reader - in a good way. Her new novel is no exception * Red *

Patchett well deserves her reputation for compelling novels, and The Dutch House is her most enthralling yet * Vogue *

What a spectacular novel. A masterpiece, I'd say -- Cathy Rentzenbrink

Wise and funny and unwraps the complexities of human beings with heartbreaking tenderness. I love this book -- Renee Knight

Bliss -- Nigella Lawson

The buzz around The Dutch House is totally justified. Her best yet, which is saying something -- John Boyne

If there's a better, more poignant or involving novel than The Dutch House published this year, I will be very, very surprised * Andrew Holgate *

A dark modern fairy tale, a delicately woven portrait of a family in flux * Evening Standard *

The plot is gentle but firm while Patchett's prose dazzles with detail and nuance, spinning a story that tucks itself inside your heart * i paper *

Wonderfully astute ... Patchett's books ... have a sly comic undertow -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *

A marvellously romantic and evocative novel about the nostalgic pull of a lost home ... Beautifully written and often tender ... That rare thing: a novel which reveals greater riches on a second reading -- Cressida Connolly * Spectator *

Beautifully imagined ... Patchett has excelled herself to produce one of the most moving and engaging novels this year * Daily Express *