We Sit in the Driveway Together Watching The Dutch House

12 of us met on Zoom to discuss The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett. Flo had nominated the book and sent discussion questions. The questions covered the main ideas in the book. We started with question #1 and followed where the answers and our thoughts about the book led us, rather than the list of questions in order.

Questions #1 and #2, regarding why Danny was the story’s narrator instead of Maeve and how the story would have been different if Maeve had been the narrator.

Ken: The ending would have been totally different, not to mention the whole last third of the book.

Pam: If it had been told from Maeve’s perspective, it would have been too hard to follow, since Maeve was all over the place. Danny was the only “normal” person in the book. The other characters all had emotional/mental issues. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the book if it weren’t told from a rational perspective.

Carla: I’m not sure Danny was all that rational.

Ken: I thought Celeste was more normal than Danny. Danny was like his father, gone a lot. Celeste never wanted the house.

Carla: One of the questions we talked about in another book club was about whether Danny was like his father. I noticed he was repeating all the mistakes his father had made.

Ken: The relationship between Maeve and her mother and stepmother versus Danny’s relationships with them. They were opposite. Danny couldn’t forgive his mother for leaving, but Maeve remembered her mother when she was there, when Maeve had time to love her.

Carla: Danny wasn’t expecting to get kicked out by Andrea.

Joyce: Family events fall differently on siblings, depending on where they are in life.

Flo – Question about Danny and Maeve and how their mother’s leaving and her return affected them.

The group figured out that she left when Maeve was about 12 and Danny about 5.

Marcia: Tough age.

Carla: When Andrea kicked Danny out of the Dutch House, Maeve already had her own apartment and full-time job.

Flo: Andrea went to India to save strangers and left her own children to do that.

Cindy T. Sometimes wealthy people seem to feel some guilt about their wealth, so they want to do something for the people in India or become a nun. An interview I watched about The Dutch House stressed that it was about wealth. Elna didn’t care much about the Dutch House, but among the family, including Andrea, there was greed over the Dutch House. It also said that losing the Dutch House was like “Paradise Lost” for Danny and Maeve. I couldn’t picture that house. Could anyone?

Joanne: In Pennsylvania, there are a bunch of old houses that seem like that. I had a specific house in mind when I was reading the book. Some houses are like museums; some rehabbed to live in.

Me: Often wealthy people started towns, with wealth and big houses. These neighborhoods were the original centers of the towns, e.g. Georgetown and even Round Rock to some extent. Then the 'burbs came in via developers and cheaper developments.

We answered all of Flo’s questions! Here’s another example of a conversation that started to be about question #3, the relationship between Danny and Maeve. The conversation branched into other themes of the book. Ann Patchett is an excellent and prize-winning author, so the story and its well-developed characters were interwoven throughout the book.

Pam – Maeve just wanted her job.

Marcia – She was good at numbers.

Pam – She needed to do something with numbers. But she needed the logic of it more.

Joyce – Shouldn’t assume that a job/career is the be-all end-all of life. Maeve was content with her simple life, so why would she want a more demanding, high-powered job?

Ken: She ran things at the job. Danny wanted her to go to an expensive college, but she wanted to keep watching over him; she had taken over the mother role in the family.

Joyce: Maeve told Danny to go to school and he did. We had some discussion about the fact that Maeve wanted Danny to spend as much money as possible on school, since school was paid for by a fund of money that Andrea would get if the kids didn't use it for school. Danny told her to go to school and she said no.

Ken: Elna came back and insisted on driving them to see Andrea. Andrea’s daughter comes downstairs – that scene was crying out for a movie.

Marcia – Maeve was upset because her Mom was going to take care of the failing Andrea (stepmom). Mom Elna comes back from India but ditches her parental responsibilities, and it’s in character for her to want to help Andrea.

Joyce: Danny and Maeve (and Andrea's own 2 children) weren’t needy enough for her.

Ken: Elna was nuts or maybe a saint. They were all nuts!

Marcia: Elna didn’t stay in India long but came back and didn’t go see her kids. Weird for Danny to run into her at the ER.

Ken: Elna told her daughter Maeve that she felt too guilty to visit them.

Carla – Elna told Maeve, but Danny heard, too.

We had those characters all psyched out! Now we know how to avoid the problems that family had and perpetuated.