Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett is the author of eight novels including The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, and The Magician’s Assistant. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written three books of nonfiction, Truth & Beauty, What now? and, most recently, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is the co-owner of Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee.  Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House (Harper) is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. The story is told by Cyril’s son Danny, as he and his older sister, the brilliantly acerbic and self-assured Maeve, are exiled by their stepmother from the house where they grew up and find themselves back in the poverty their parents had escaped from. Their bond saves their lives and thwarts their futures. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called The Dutch House a “splendid novel [that] is a thoughtful, compassionate exploration of obsession and forgiveness, what people acquire, keep, lose or give away, and what they leave behind.”