75 The Dutch House Ann Patchett
Having been underwhelmed by the few novels I'd read by this author, particularly Tom Lake, a very over-hyped book imo, I was pleased to find this one I really enjoyed.
The story of brother and sister, Maeve and Danny Conroy who grew up in the Dutch House of the title situated in up market area of Pennsylvania The children have been abandoned at a very early age by their mother for reasons that have never been made clear. Danny so young at the time, he has no memory of her, is raised by a combination of his wealthy, but emotionally remote father, his much loved older sister and a handful of good and kind women employed in the household. Into their lives comes Andrea a young widow, who Cyril their father has formed an attachment to. In due course he marries her. She brings with her two younger daughters who get on well with the Conroy children. When Danny is mid teens, their father without any forewarning dies suddenly of a heart attack, and thereafter Andrea is to become the embodiment of the classic wicked stepmother when she kicks her step children out of the house, she having inherited their father's entire estate. Maeve early 20s, has already graduated, is to become her brother's guardian. The one thing their father did leave them was a trust fund for their ongoing education which enables Danny to pursue his chosen path of becoming a doctor. The second half of the book deals with their abandonment and how their life unfolds as adults in the ensuing decades, which sometimes finds the siblings driving past the Dutch House to just stop and gaze at it, on one of these occasions way into the future when the siblings are middle aged, Andrea spots them and mistakes Danny for his father, and it soon becomes apparent that she is suffering from dementia, so a poetic justice of sorts. Along with the fact that she has become estranged from one of her daughters when she learned how her step siblings had been treated. The other daughter was forced along the path of also becoming a doctor to compete with her step brother. An unexpected twist brings their mother, who they thought had died back into their lives when Maeve suffered a heart attack. The absent mother had devoted her life to caring for others and in spite of the unforgivable of abandoning her own children the unanticipated conclusion sees her becoming the carer to her successor, Andrea. Overall a winding up of acceptance, regrets and reconciliation. Definitely the best book of hers I've read, very good.
The description of her final hours had me shedding a tear all over again. She was there in many of our lives as a permanent backdrop and as the book progressed, and the years rolled on she was often the unconscious lynch pin as to whatever was unfolding personally, insomuch as triggering awakenings in a "ah yes, I remember that now" way to happenings that sometimes get buried in the recesses of the brain. Although for much of my life I completely ignored the royal family they were just there! It was only when she reached the final stages of her life I felt appreciation for her sense of duty, a life preordained, not of her choosing with umpteen restraints which many would not want. So this book is a cornucopia of testaments, diary entries and cultural history, the latter very much an integral part of the Beatles biography but from the point of view of their upward trajectory from a polar opposite starting point. Some of it is uproariously funny, some very sad, the ups, the downs many of which came right towards the end of her life are catalogued. Of course she, was one of the most written about people in her own lifetime so most would rightly assume that there isn't anything more to know, but anecdotes possibly give an insight into some of the minutiae that wouldn't be available to the public. I enjoyed it, easy listening.Problems in Harry and Meghan Marriage
