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Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

I love this author.  The first book I read, Bel Canto, which garnered a lot of praise but I did not much like.  I worked beyond that, read The Magician's Assistant, and earlier work, and loved it.  The rest is history.
I loved this book.  It is a tale oft told, where the father remarries a younger woman, and unlike his first wife, who married him when he was poor, this woman is definitely attracted as much to his house and his money as to he himself.  She more or less shuns his children when he is alive, something he would have noticed if he wasn't so focused on staying away from wife number two.  In any case, his sudden death changes their lives.
The book loops around in classic Patchett fashion to close quite a few circles.  It has a perspective on love and loss, anger and forgiveness, family and connections, all of it believable and warm to behold.  It is not so much a tragedy as a family journey, with all the elements of what that entails.  Maybe my favorite of her books.

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