Summary
Chapter 1
The novel is narrated by Danny at different points in his life. It begins with him as an eight-year-old boy, recalling the first time he and his older sister, Maeve, met Andrea, who would become their stepmother.
Maeve and Danny venture downstairs in the Dutch House, watching their father and the woman looking at portraits of the house’s former owners, Mr. and Mrs. VanHoebeek.
Danny has always seen those people in the portraits as being ancient, as so very married. They had come with the house like everything else. There are dozens of portraits everywhere, but the best one is of Maeve, who was painted when a famous painter from New York wasn’t able to paint their mother.
Their father finally turns and says tells his children to say hello to Mrs. Smith. Danny will always believe Andrea’s face fell when she first saw them: it was as if she could not really believe Cyril Conroy had children. It is not true that things were bad from the start, as Maeve and Danny were both perfectly pleasant.
They know it was Andrea’s goal to get in the house for years, and she was the first woman their father had brought home since their mother left. Maeve told Danny their father had been sleeping with their nanny, Fiona, whom they called Fluffy, a story which surprised Danny. He has no memories of his mother but he does remember Fluffy striking him with a wooden spoon because he apparently grabbed her skirt when she was cooking on the stove. He screamed and Maeve flew in and attacked Fluffy, and Fluffy was dismissed. She cried that it was an accident and did not want to leave. She’d been there since she was a girl, for her parents had worked for the VanHoebeeks as driver and cook.
The VanHoebeeks were the story, yes, but their house, finished in 1922, was more the story. They made their fortune in cigarette distribution, and they commissioned a house outside of Philadelphia in Elkins Park. It is a grandiose house, too much house. It seems to float above the hill it sits on. It has huge windows and is perhaps neoclassical or Mediterranean or French—but definitely not Dutch. Someone outside could look in through the glass and let their eyes go up the stairs across the foyer through the observatory.
Andrea wonders aloud that the place would have been better if there were no neighbors, as it had been when it was first built. Over time, land had been shaved away from the house. Parcels were sold to pay off debts. Mr. VanHoebeek died in 1940, and Mrs. VanHoebeek died in 1945, at which point there was little left to sell off. Everything went to the bank. Fluffy lived there alone as a caretaker of sorts, and Cyril bought it in 1946. By then, raccoons were in the ballroom and had chewed through the wires in the ballroom. There were many fleas, which was Maeve’s first memory.
*
The first time Danny and Maeve ever park on VanHoebeek Street is when Danny is home from Choate, his boarding school. He is not in a good mood and tells Maeve to move along, though he is happy to be with her in her Oldsmobile. It is snowing softly, and they park.
Maeve takes a drag from a cigarette and says she had thought about coming here a few times but waited for him. When the warm light of the chandelier floods the foyer as if on cue, Danny realizes she has been coming here. It is clear that Andrea turns on the lights right at sunset and Maeve knows this. They can see Andrea and one of her daughters, Norma. Maeve muses that Andrea must have watched them all before she ever came that first time. Danny surmises anyone who ever came that way watched them.
Chapter 2
Andrea “lingered like a virus” (16) after that first visit. She talks obsessively about the house, annoying Maeve, Danny, Sandy (the housekeeper), and Sandy’s sister Jocelyn (the cook).
One Sunday, Andrea says she is waiting for their father, but the children do not know where he is. In the awkward void of conversation, Andrea ventures that she is half Dutch; Maeve says they are Irish. Andrea says nothing.
Maeve and Danny wonder where she parked, not seeing her car, and meander outside. They find her car a block away, her fender crumpled. Clearly, she didn’t want their father to see it.
Cyril never really talks about Andrea; the children think he is not altogether that interested in her, nor that he has the “means to deal with her tenacity” (18).
At the end of each week, Cyril takes Danny with him to collect the rent. That is how he has his money: buying buildings, maintaining them, tenants, etc. Danny helps him with maintenance and knows that, someday, the business will be his. He enjoys these visits, and Cyril tells him often that the only way to understand what money means is to have been poor like he was.
It seems as if Cyril is more comfortable with his tenants than with the people in his office or even his own family. He is kind with them, never makes threats, and listens to their stories. Yet, he does sometimes have to evict them, which Danny never sees. Danny recognizes how deferential everyone is with his father, and with him too.
The closer they get to Philadelphia, the poorer the buildings and tenants get. One time, a man goes on about how he cannot pay rent because his son is sick. The boy is feverish and looks dead. Cyril picks him up, puts him in the car, and takes him to the hospital, making arrangements for his care. All of this surprises Danny, who says nothing. He tells Maeve later, who says knowingly that their father, who normally hates sick people, did it because there was no mother there.
Maeve remembers their mother, but Danny does not. Maeve will often speak about something their mother did, but this is not what it is like for Danny. For him, Maeve has always acted like a mother, attending his games, teaching him how to hold a fork, letting him tell her about his bad dreams, and reminding him that he is smart and kind.
One day, Fluffy takes Maeve to school, which is odd because their mother normally does this. She is not there at dinner, and Maeve asks her father where she is. He holds her, kisses her, and says that Elna has gone to visit friends because she needs a vacation. Maeve is confused, especially when Elna is back a couple days later like nothing is different. She seems tired, and she carries out this odd routine three more times. She is gone more and more, but sometimes, Maeve will go in and sleep with her at night.
Maeve, in recounting this story to Danny, says their mother was turning into a ghost. She would cry for days and be in bed all day, sometimes playing with baby Danny. Sandy, Jocelyn, and Fluffy were all nervous but did nothing. It was unbearable both when she was gone and when she was there. At one point, their father told Maeve she was not coming back because she had gone to India. Maeve was flabbergasted. Their father did not hold her after he told her this news, which seemed to mean something.
After this, Maeve stopped getting up in the morning and sank into an illness. One day, she couldn't wake up and had to go to the hospital. She stayed there for two weeks and was diagnosed with diabetes, which may have been from trauma or a virus. She was in a dream-like state but was able to come home. She did not improve there. Everyone thought she got sick because their mother left, so no one spoke of her. The Dutch House was quiet. Injections were terrible, and Fluffy had to take her back to the hospital once. Maeve came back home, at which point she cried and cried. Cyril came in and told her to stop, and she finally did.
Chapter 3
Two months after Maeve and Danny first meet Andrea, they meet her two young daughters, Norma and Bright. Norma is the more serious of the two, but both are friendly.
Maeve and Danny think their father will not be too pleased with more children, but it turns out they have completely misread the situation. This is the final sign of the package deal that is Andrea and her daughters.
One evening, Andrea is wearing a fancy dress and says the girls will be staying here this evening and can entertain themselves. Maeve is indignant about having to be a babysitter but says nothing. Their father comes down and awkwardly looks past them, and he and Andrea leave.
Both little girls start to cry and Maeve gives them tissues. She asks if they’d like to see the house; they eventually stop sniffling and agree. Maeve takes them on a long and elaborate tour thorough the basement with its fuse box, extra food, and Christmas ornaments, through the third-floor ballroom, and through her bedroom with its lovely window-seat. Danny is annoyed that she is doing all this, but she reminds him that they are little and she feels bad for them.
Danny narrates that his sister was never given credit for many of the things she did, including being kind to Norma and Bright. She did not speak much to them in the presence of Cyril and Andrea, but when they were alone, she was very attentive.
Normally, the matter of where the family eats dinner is determined by unspoken and immutable laws regarding who is home and who is not. It is best when Andrea and the girls are not there and the three Conroys sit at the little kitchen table—not the dining table—and resemble a family. Danny always likes being in the kitchen with Sandy and Jocelyn in particular.
One evening at dinner with their father, Danny thinks something is off with Maeve. He can always read her blood sugar levels; tonight, her levels don't seem to be the issue. She finally says matter-of-factly that it is not her and Danny’s job to take care of the girls. She says she has homework, which Danny knows is not really true. Cyril is caught off-guard, but Danny can tell Maeve has prepared. She says they’re Andrea’s children and she should take care of them. When Cyril notes that Maeve takes care of Danny, she replies that Danny is her brother. Cyril asks whether she'd mind if the girls were family; she says, flatly, that they are not family. Cyril, quietly angry, responds that while she is under his roof and eats his food, she can look after their guests if he asks her to. Maeve silently stands up and leaves. The rest of the dinner is silent and awkward for Danny. Afterward, he goes upstairs to Maeve and gives her an orange. She is sitting and looking out at the garden, and she tells Danny that this does not bode well.
Chapter 4
Six weeks after Maeve went to Barnard for undergrad, she is summoned back for Cyril’s wedding to Andrea. There are thirty or so guests, several of whom are Andrea’s family. The wedding is on a bright fall day at the house, not a church, as Andrea is not Catholic and Cyril is divorced. Andrea, 31, looks pretty and young. Looking back, Danny realizes that his lack of imagination was to blame for his inability to understand why Cyril would marry Andrea.
*
Danny and Maeve are sitting in the car parked in front of the Dutch House. Danny is finished with his first year of medical school at Columbia.
Danny asks Maeve if it is possible to see the past as it actually was, and when Maeve says she does, he explains that people overlay the present onto the past. Maeve smiles and comments that he must be taking psych classes. It is 1971 and psychiatry is all the rage; Maeve laughs and says she does not need a psychiatrist because she can see the past clearly, but she adds that he can practice on her if he wants.
Danny changes the subject and asks why Maeve is not at work. She is surprised by the question and says Mr. Otterson always gives her time off when Danny comes home. She has been working for him since she graduated from college; his company ships frozen vegetables. She manages payroll and taxes and had, early on, improved the delivery system. Danny wonders why she is not going back to school, but she says he should not change the subject.
Mrs. Buchsbaum, the neighbor, comes out and cheerily says hello to them. She says Maeve ought to get a boyfriend, and she tells Danny, as if Maeve were not there, that she loves seeing Maeve but worries about her coming to the house so much. She comments that Andrea never waves and must be a sad person, but the girls have better manners. When the siblings are alone again, Maeve says that Mrs. Buchsbaum “corroborates my memory of the past” (47).
*
When Maeve is back at school and Andrea and the girls are moved in, Danny becomes a little closer to his father. Sandy and Jocelyn, though, look after him the most and keep him company. Maeve writes him long letters.
At one point, Danny is surprised to learn that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters, and he inwardly berates himself for not knowing what is happening in his own house and life. He feels as if he had been asleep to the world and feels uncomfortable around them for a while until he decides to pretend like he always knew.
Sandy and Jocelyn used to run the house without complete autonomy, but with Andrea there now, that's no longer the case. Everything changes, even the subtlest things. Then, one day, Andrea announces that she is going to move Norma into Maeve’s room with the window seat because Maeve is at school and there is no need to have a shrine to someone who is absent. Even Cyril is caught off-guard, but Andrea is firm. Norma is clearly horrified by Maeve losing the room but is intrigued by the glorious window seat.
The process of changing Maeve’s room into Norma’s is drawn-out, as it is repainted and decorated. Finally, Norma moves in, and Maeve learns about it when she comes home for Thanksgiving. No one had the nerve to tell her before then.
Andrea says that there have been some “changes” and Maeve is on the third floor now. Cyril picks up her suitcase to walk her up, this being what he is willing to do if not protest against the change. Maeve is lighthearted about it and teases Norma about The Little Princess where the girl loses her money and is moved into the attic. Norma bursts into tears and runs away. Cyril takes Maeve upstairs and they are gone for a while.
Chapter 5
Maeve comes home for Christmas for a few days but does not come home for Easter because the dorms are open. All of her friends live in the city and explore it during the holidays. Maeve suggests that Danny take the train and come visit.
Danny is skeptical that his father will agree, but Cyril actually volunteers to drive Danny and says that Danny can take the train home after. Andrea learns of the plan and says they will all go, and she begins planning sightseeing. Danny does not care as long as he gets to Maeve.
However, Cyril comes to Danny early on the morning of the supposed trip and tells him that it is time to go. There is no sight of Andrea and the girls and Danny hasn’t even packed yet, but he wordlessly agrees, shocked that Cyril is clearly leaving Andrea behind. He cannot even imagine his father’s courage in doing this.
Danny is silent for a while, looking out the window and thinking of the fun he and Maeve are going to have in Manhattan. Suddenly, his father says that he lived in New York for a while, and he decides to show Danny where.
Danny reflects on how much of an enigma his father is to him. He knows a few things: his left knee always hurts, he loves buildings, he likes baseball, he takes milk in his coffee, and he watches birds.
As they drive, Cyril points out things that have changed or are the same, such as Bob’s Cup and Saucer, which had wonderful crullers. He pulls up to a building and says he lived there; Danny’s mother lived a block back. Danny says he wants to see where she lived, and after a moment of hesitation, Cyril agrees. They walk over a block and Cyril comments that Elna’s father put the bars up on the window. Danny asks if his grandfather is still alive, and then he bravely asks if there are others. Cyril tells him what happened to each of the siblings, some of whom died or moved away.
Finally, Danny even more bravely asks why his mother left. Cyril sighs and says that she was crazy. He says there is no sense in wondering about her because everyone has a burden in life—this is his.
Back in the car, conversation ceases. They drive into the city, pick up Maeve, and go out to lunch. Cyril asks her about her classes and she brightly tells him every detail. It is a singular thing for him to give her his full attention, but he does. Cyril says goodbye and departs.
Maeve says they should go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which Danny had been excited about, but he feels ill. She asks what is wrong and he says simply that they went to Brooklyn. Maeve is stunned and Danny haltingly tells her that Andrea was supposed to come and did not. He begins to cry.
Maeve gives him a tissue and waits. Finally, she asks if he could remember how to get there, and he says he will try. They take the subway to Fourteenth, get off, find Bob’s, go to their mother’s apartment, and then return to Bob’s and have coffee. There, they talk about what Cyril said, and Maeve explains that Elna hated the Dutch House and was not crazy.
The rest of Danny’s visit is a whirlwind of tourist attractions like the Empire State Building, the Church of Notre Dame, and Penn Station. Sandy picks Danny up from the train station< and he joins everyone for dinner. Andrea is quiet and unfriendly and starts talking about Easter lunch, but the girls ask excitedly about the city.
*
Danny says it is strange they never see Andrea. Maeve shrugs and says they are not there that much (Danny privately disagrees); says adds that she wonders if she is dead. Danny wonders if she is happy; he speculates that maybe, back then, she just didn’t know any better. Maybe they never knew her that well.
Maeve scoffs that he does not need to say anything good about her. Danny replies that he did not hate her back then, so he should not have to scrub every decent memory away. He thinks to himself that they are focusing too much on their hate. Maeve cannot understand this perspective.
Danny knows that he has little free time and wonders why it has to be spent here, but that is where they wind up. This is where they can pretend that what they’d lost was the house, not their mother or father, nor that the person inside took it from them.
Analysis
The Dutch House has been compared to fairy tales (its hardcover book jacket describes it thusly), and it is not hard to see why even within the first few chapters. There is a magnificent, stately house that, while not haunted, seems to have a beguiling but oppressive hold over its inhabitants; there are a lost mother and a wicked stepmother to replace her; there are two stepsisters; characters are exiled; there is a narrative of movement from wealth to poverty to wealth. Scholar Martha Warner says that fairy tales are appealing because they are “stories that try to find the truth and give us glimpses of greater things.” Through Patchett’s use of fairytale motifs in The Dutch House, readers are able to tap into its characters’ deep and authentic emotions, conflicts, and traumas.
The novel has a single narrator—Danny Conroy—but moves back and forth in time. It seems clear that Danny is relating this narrative in his old age, occasionally stepping outside the events he’s relating to say something about the overall arc of his narrative. He begins when he and Maeve first meet Andrea (he is eight, Maeve is fifteen), but even the years before that moment come alive through the recollections of others. He chronicles every decade of his and Maeve’s lives, moving through Cyril’s death and their subsequent banishment from the house, college, his medical schooling, his marriage, his children, their reunion with Elna, Maeve’s death, and his daughter May’s eventual purchase of the house.
Danny is a reliable narrator, but, like all humans, he often has to correct his earlier assumptions or alter his opinions when he hears someone else recount their knowledge of a particular person or event. He is intelligent, but he admits that he sometimes seems to blithely go about his life without really analyzing it. For example, he is shocked when he learns as a child that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters, which is something that is both obvious and widely known. It bothers him then and in the future because he felt “I was asleep to the world. Even in my own house I had no idea what was going on” (51). He is perspicacious enough to question the nature of memory itself and to question how fallible it is; in one instance when he and Maeve are parked in front of the Dutch House in their post-banishment routine, he asks her, “Do you think It’s possible to ever see the past as it actually was?” (45) and then continues to ruminate, “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” (45). He is wisely saying that it is difficult for us to remember things as they actually were because we look back on them from a place of distance, and cannot easily, or ever, return to that headspace.
Danny also wonders specifically about the way we choose to remember certain people in our lives, as well as how we may consciously or unconsciously form an image of them that does not account for the whole truth. He says of Andrea, “sometimes I wonder if she just didn’t know any better. Maybe she was too young to deal with everything, or maybe it was grief. Or maybe things had happened in her own life that had nothing to do with us. I mean, what did we ever know about Andrea? The truth is I have plenty of memories of her being perfectly decent. I just choose to dwell in the ones in which she wasn’t” (73). Maeve does not at all feel like acknowledging this possibility even if she knows that it is true, preferring to instead hold onto the fully negative picture of Andrea. And, clearly, the longer the amount of time that intervenes between the formation of the picture and the present moment, the easier it is to start believing that that picture is actually true, rather than just a psychological construct intended to ease one's trauma.
Danny’s comment about remembering Andrea is also important because it reminds the reader that we are only getting to know these characters—particularly Cyril, Elna, Andrea, and Maeve—through Danny. Again, he is a good narrator and gives us little reason to doubt his veracity, but the fact remains that we only think we know what’s going on in the others’ heads based on what they choose to tell Danny or what he chooses to surmise about them. In an interview, Patchett explained a bit about her choice to have Danny as the narrator, saying, “Maeve is so at the center of everything…I never thought of telling the story from her point of view because I wanted to see her from a distance.” She has also said about Danny, “Danny was a very easy character because he is smart and charming and hardworking, and affable and easy and funny, and utterly oblivious to the fact that he has been carried along through his life on the shoulders of the women who surround him.” This comment reminds us again that we are coming at the story from one perspective—Danny’s—and that we should keep that in mind as we read.
