by ANN PATCHETT

The Dutch House


 
Read by: Tom Hanks
Running Time: 9 hrs 45 mins
Categories: Family Relationships
Released: September 2019
Media: mp3 CD; Unabridged
ISBN: 9780062963703


The Author

Ann Patchett (born December 2, 1963) is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

For nine years, Patchett worked at Seventeen magazine, where she wrote primarily non-fiction and the magazine published one of every five articles she wrote. She ended her relationship with the magazine after getting into a dispute with an editor and exclaiming, "I’ll never darken your door again!"

Patchett has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, O, The Oprah Magazine, ELLE, GQ, Gourmet, and Vogue. In 1992, Patchett published The Patron Saint of Liars. The novel was made into a television movie of the same title in 1998. Her second novel Taft won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in fiction in 1994. Her third novel, The Magician’s Assistant, was released in 1997. In 2001, her fourth novel Bel Canto was her breakthrough, becoming a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and winning the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Patchett is the editor of the 2006 volume of the anthology series The Best American Short Stories. In 2011, she published State of Wonder, a novel set in the Amazon jungle, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. In 2016 she published her novel Commonwealth to widespread critical acclaim. Patchett called the book her "autobiographical first novel," explaining, “The wonderful thing about publishing this book at 52 is that I know that I am [already] capable of working from a place of deep imagination.”[

In 2019, Patchett published her first children's book, Lambslide, and the novel The Dutch House, a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

In November 2021, she published These Precious Days, an essay collection she describes as the sequel to This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. These Precious Days received wide acclaim, with review aggregator Book Marks rating it a “rave” based on 25 reviews. In 2023, Ann Patchett published a novel called Tom Lake, and it was ranked a The New York Times Best Sellers.

Her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.

Synopsis

Pulitzer Prize Finalist | New York Times Bestseller | A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick | New York Times Book Review Notable Book | TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of the Year

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, The Washington Post; O: The Oprah Magazine, Real SimpleGood Housekeeping, Vogue, Refinery29, and Buzzfeed

From Ann Patchett, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth, comes a powerful, richly moving story that explores the indelible bond between two siblings, the house of their childhood, and a past that will not let them go. The Dutch House is the story of a paradise lost, a tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves.

The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother. The two wealthy siblings are thrown back into the poverty their parents had escaped from and find that all they have to count on is one another. It is this unshakeable bond between them that both saves their lives and thwarts their futures.

Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage.

But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.

Reviews

“Intricate and alluring.” - Boston Globe

“Hanks brings his trademark calming tone to his reading as first-person narrator Danny.” - Parade (audio review)

“Hanks is balanced, measured and still so endlessly charming. This is one voice you absolutely need in your head.” - Elle (audio review)

“Tom Hanks narrates this novel…with a restraint that admirably captures the writing’s surface calm and buried tension…Hanks takes his narrative cue from Danny, who tells the story in a mix of bemusement, wonder, and nostalgia…a sensitive and warm reading of a fine novel about love, loyalty, redemption, forgiveness, and what we will do to make the world the way we want it to be.” - AudioFile

“A paradise lost tale dusted with a sprinkling of Cinderella, The Little Princess, and Hansel and Gretel." - AudioFiles

“A deeply pleasurable book.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

On Media

Audiobook on CD-ROM, complete with artwork on CD. Supplied in windowed CD sleeve, no case provided.

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