The Dutch House

1. General Impressions 

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• Did you know the novel is partially based on the story of Hansel and Gretel? If so, what parts of the story reflect this fairytale connection? Does knowing about the fairytale inspiration add to your reading experience? Why or why not?
• What was your sense of the house at the heart of the narrative? Did you try to research whether it was based on a real house, or try to find images of similar houses? How often do you look details up online as you read in general?
• Have you read any other novels by Patchett? If so, how did the themes of this one compare to those in her other works? If not, have you read any other novels based on fairytale tropes? How does Patchett approach this context similarly to or differently from other authors who also use this technique?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection 

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• The novel is in many ways about obsession: Maeve and Danny cannot leave the orbit of the house that they were expelled from as young adults. Have you ever felt drawn to a place or object in the same way? What do you think inspires this kind of long-lasting preoccupation, whether positive or negative?
• Questions of inheritance and wealth can be thorny and disruptive. Elna doesn’t want to participate in the portrait sitting that would mark the family’s continuity in the line of Dutch House owners; the educational trust Cyril leaves to his children becomes Maeve’s method of revenge; Danny’s desire to bequeath wealth to his wife leads to their estrangement. Does this portrayal of wealth distribution gibe with your experiences? Why or why not?
• How did you react to the novel’s several depictions of maternal abandonment, such as Elna’s decision to go to India, which characters interpret as the cause of Maeve’s diabetes, or Andrea’s choice to force her stepchildren out of the house? Which do you think is depicted as the less forgivable action and why?
• Many of the characters are trapped within narratives they believe about themselves—Danny convinces himself to follow in Cyril’s real estate footsteps and holds his relationship with Maeve as the most important in his life; Maeve cannot see herself as anything other than Andrea’s victim; Celeste is so invested in becoming a doctor’s wife that when this doesn’t happen, she loses her sense of herself. Have you ever felt trapped in a story you believed about yourself? What happened when you managed to transform or escape that narrative?
• Our sense of the novel’s morality is dependent on questions of what people owe to one another: Danny and Maeve are locked into a cycle of interdependent mutual responsibility, while Andrea and Elna walk away from some duties while fulfilling others. How do we decide where to draw the line between our obligations to those around us and the need to be autonomous?

3. Societal and Cultural Context 

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• The main characters have an ambivalent relationship to higher education. Maeve makes Danny pursue medical school mostly as a way to drain the educational trust so that their stepsiblings cannot use it, and she herself doesn’t go on to graduate school so that she can continue to haunt their former house. Danny, meanwhile, agrees to an education he doesn’t want, is blinkered to the privilege that allows him to go to college and medical school without incurring debts, and abandons his degrees to pursue real estate. What is the novel saying about the ability of young people to make life-altering decisions about their post-high school educational lives?
• Cyril’s life reflects the ideals of the American Dream—the idea that hard work can take someone from poverty to wealth. How does Patchett both indulge this myth of the self-made man and question its usefulness? How have ideas about the American Dream changed in the US in recent decades?

4. Literary Analysis 

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• What is the purpose of the portraits that become potent symbols in the story? Compare Cyril’s relationship to the paintings of the VanHoebeek family, to the family’s reaction to Cyril’s desire to have their portraits painted, to Maeve’s interest in her own portrait. What do these pieces of art represent?
• Why is the narrative nonlinear? How does this affect the reading experience and why might Patchett have wanted to make the story’s chronology hard to follow?
• Consider the theme of forgiveness in the novel. Who is capable of forgiving those who have done wrong? Who do you think deserves forgiveness and why? Who doesn’t?
• The novel juxtaposes the marriage of Cyril and Elna to that of their son Danny and his wife Celeste. Why does Danny repeat his father’s mistakes? How does he break the legacy of his father’s misunderstanding of the women in his life?

5. Creative Engagement 

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• What do you think May will do with the Dutch house after the end of the novel? Given its depiction, is it possible to renovate it or remake it in a way that will purge it of its negative history?
• What other fairytales would you like to see adapted into realistic fiction and why?
• Who else’s perspective would you have wanted to hear in the novel? Whose version of events would have the most to offer in opposition to/complementing the one we have?

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