The Dutch House — Portable Edition

In 1946, after the Second World War, Cyril Conroy, a poor man, suddenly strikes it rich with a stroke of luck. His first purchase is an opulent property in the Philadelphia suburbs, USA, formerly owned by a Dutch family that has since been ruined. Conroy moves with his wife, Elna, and their daughter, the confident and protective Maeve, into the new house, where Danny, the narrator of this story, will later be born. 

What would have been a pleasant change of life becomes the downfall of the entire family, in a kind of lost paradise. Elna, unable to cope with the property's luxuries and its servants, ends the marriage and flees, leaving her children behind. 

Later, a stepmother, Andrea, a young widow with two daughters, arrives at the property, and the two siblings, Maeve and Danny, are gradually pushed aside until they are eventually expelled from their own home, returned to poverty, with only each other to rely on to cope with the loss, the humiliation, and the anger, until one day they can finally confront those who abandoned them. 

The Dutch House, a narrative spanning five decades, is a family saga, a slow, painful journey with characters who will stay with us forever, like a fairy tale turned upside down. 

Book of the Year The Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Washington Post