The Dutch House

In 1946, after the Second World War, Cyril Conroy, a poor man, suddenly strikes it rich with a fortuitous investment. The first purchase he makes is an opulent property in the Philadelphia suburbs, in the USA, formerly owned by a now-bankrupt Dutch family. Conroy moves with his wife, Elna, and their daughter, the confident and protective Maeve, to 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 as well.

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, able to count only on each other to deal with the loss, the humiliation, and the anger, until one day they can finally confront those who abandoned them.

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