The Dutch House

 While I enjoyed reading [a:Ann Patchett|7136914|Ann Patchett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1371838720p2/7136914.jpg]'s [b:The Dutch House|44318414|The Dutch House|Ann Patchett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1552334367l/44318414.SY75.jpg|68864841], I suspect I'll have forgotten much about it a year from now. Part of why I read it is that it takes place in a Philadelphia suburb and I live in a Philadelphia suburb.
 There's some lazy writing toward the end, a criticism I'm completely unqualified to make, and the narrator, a 1960s graduate of both an elite prep school (Choate) and an Ivy League college (Columbia) and graduate school (medicine) would have known better than to write "could care less" instead of the correct "couldn't care less," a mistake educated writers of that time, and even now, though not as many, would not have made. Also, the timeline gets confusing at times.

Contrary to what Maeve assumed, I thought about our mother very little when I was young. I didn't know her, and I found it hard to pine for a person or a time I couldn't remember. The family she left me with—a cook, a housekeeper, a doting sister and distant father—functioned to my advantage. Even when I looked at the few pictures of her that were squirreled away, the tall thin woman with a sharp jaw and dark hair was too much like Maeve to make me think there was something I had missed. But on the day of our father's funeral, my mother was all I could think of, and I longed for her comfort with an ache I could never have imagined.

Ann Patchett always tells a good story. This latest novel seemed shorter than usual, but did not lack for interesting characters and situations.

The protagonist and narrator is Danny, who is recounting his difficult and unusual childhood, including his intensely close relationship with his sister, Maeve. With a distant father and an absent mother, the two of them have always looked out for one another. This is the story of their relationship first, and also the way each of them view and cope with the past.

The Dutch House is the eccentric mansion that still symbolizes their childhood to both of them, but it is a place they cannot go home to. It's complicated--I'd recommend not reading too much about this book before starting it.

I enjoyed this very much, and would recommend it!

The one topic I'd like to discuss: Elna! Danny is very angry with her, while Maeve is over the moon to have her back--only to be left again. If Andrea is supposed to be the evil stepmother, I do not think she has a foil; Elna abandoned her children. Also, could Andrea have legally kicked a minor out of his home? And I'm curious about how poor Bright and Norma got on.

Later note: I recently read Patron Saint of Liars, and--Rose reminded me somewhat of Elna. Two women who married too young?