The one book you need to read if you feel like you’re failing
Megan Collins of The Manicured Shelf is back this month to share her recommendation for the best book to pair with our forgiveness intention. So if you’ve been extra hard on yourself lately, or if you’re trying to find a way to juggle life, kids, [all the things!!], we’ve got you covered. Read on for Megan’s full recommendation + review.
Parents are people too. Such is the thesis of Anne Patchett’s The Dutch House.
Told through the relationship of siblings Maeve & Danny and the house they grew up in, The Dutch House is a meditation on childhood trauma & the ways in which it can haunt forever. At least on the surface.
Starting with their childhood perspectives, Patchett takes the reader through five decades of family baggage that culminate in a bittersweet conclusion filled with as much hope as disappointment.
Beyond the plot, hidden between the lines on the page like family secrets swept under the rug, are two rich portraits of parents who, despite being deeply flawed, are trying their best.
Cyril Conroy is the entrepreneurial, emotionally distant patriarch who’s unilateral decision making (among other things) drives his wife away leaving him to care for their two children. And while he does care for them logistically, his choices also alienate his children. Left with a lifetime of trauma and forced to lean on one another to cope, the siblings form a strong bond.
Elna Conroy is a depressed housewife who, sequestered in her beautiful glass mansion, finds herself moved to leave her family for India where she wants to work with those in need. Her absence, understandably, leaves her family reeling, confused, and deeply wounded.
Patchett’s brilliance is in avoiding demonizing Elna and her choices. Instead chooses to examine the ways in which women–especially in the 1940s–might feel confined by their assigned societal role. After all, Elna and her husband managed to escape from the poverty they grew up in and provide a better lives for their children. Theoretically, she should be incredibly happy, right? If only it were that simple and The Dutch House is honest about this other side of motherhood while also being fair to the children who were, by all accounts, abandoned by a beloved parent.
At its core, it’s about the emotional labor of forgiveness: who’s expected to do it, how heavy a burden it can be, and the ways in which it goes unseen. Forgiveness is a complicated concept and The Dutch House doesn’t shy away from honestly examining that complexity. At times it’s sad and disheartening but it's an incredibly moving portrait of a family who wants more than anything to find a way to forgive one another or risk repeating generational cycles.
If you like this I recommend you check out Commonwealth by Anne Patchett next!