The Nature of Things

The main character in The Dutch House is the house itself. It looms over the lives of the human characters and haunts them to the very end of their days. The house was built in a suburb of Philadelphia by a Dutch couple, the VanHoebeeks, who had made a fortune in a cigarette distribution business that they started before World War I. The facade of the house was glass; you could look right through it. The lives of the people who lived in it were never so transparent. The VanHoebeeks raised their family there, but it was a family stalked by tragedy and by post World War II years, the only family member left was the mother who was cared for by a servant, Fiona (later nicknamed Fluffy). When the mother died, the house reverted to ownership by a bank and it was sold. The buyer was Cyril Conroy, a man who had grown up poor but through a combination of acumen and luck had parlayed a single investment in a property into an enormous real estate empire. He was a man with a wife whom he adored a...

In an unnamed host country, somewhere in South America, a birthday party is taking place at the home of the vice-president. It is a party in honor of a wealthy and successful Japanese businessman, who the host country's government hopes will make a sizable investment in that country. The Japanese businessman is an opera fan; one might even say an opera nut. In order to flatter and please him, the host country has brought in a world famous opera singer, Roxane Coss, to entertain at his party. Many people from the diplomatic community are present at the party, but one guest is missing: the country's president. The president's great passion is not opera but soap opera. He is enthralled by a particular soap opera that is on television daily and then has a nighttime episode on Tuesday that provides a roundup of the whole week's story, and he stayed home on the night of the party to watch his beloved soap opera. Nevertheless, the party proceeds successfully. Roxane Coss sings...

I felt some uneasiness at the beginning of this book. I wasn't particularly liking the characters I was meeting and I wasn't sure just where Ann Patchett was taking me with them. Of course, I shouldn't have worried. Patchett starts with characters that are perhaps not so lovable, and she reveals them to us incrementally, bit by bit, layer by layer, and as more layers of their humanity are laid bare, a remarkable thing happens. We find that the characters are relatable and even likable. We know these people. They are our neighbors, our family, our friends, ourselves. We end up caring deeply about them and hoping against hope that things will turn out well for them on their complicated journeys through life. The story begins with an uninvited guest at a christening party. The birth of Franny Keating, the second daughter of Beverly and Fix Keating, is being celebrated. Fix is a cop with the LAPD and most of the guests are cops and their wives.  But then a lawyer with the DA...

Ann Patchett had me at the first scene in her novel  State of Wonder . The heroine of her story, Dr. Marina Singh, is a 42-year-old research scientist for a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, who works, with her research partner Dr. Anders Eckman, in the rather unexciting field of cholesterol. But Eckman has been sent by the company to Brazil and as the story opens, Marina's boss and lover, Mr. Fox, appears in the doorway of her lab with an airmail letter informing the company that Dr. Eckman has died of a fever. Marina feels as though the world is collapsing, folding in on her. Eckman has left a wife and three sons and Mr. Fox and Marina go to the home to break the tragic news. Mrs. Eckman is unable to accept that her husband is dead. She believes she would feel it if he were gone. She wants Marina to go to Brazil and find out what has happened. And this, as it happens, is exactly what Mr. Fox wants as well. Eckman had been sent to Brazil to locate Dr. Annick Swenson, a research...