The new novel by American writer Ann Patchett resembles a Grimm Brothers fairy tale expanded into a family epic. The story of the main characters, Danny Conroy and his sister Maeve, covers the entire second half of the 20th century, and their fates are fatally intertwined with the Dutch House—a mansion in eastern Pennsylvania once belonging to the bankrupt dynasty of Dutch magnates Van Hoobayk. The Dutch House itself is not inhabited by ghosts, but anyone who crosses its threshold in some sense becomes a ghost of the house—wherever they go afterwards, wherever they live later, they carry this image with them. Danny and Maeve have only that: a father who died prematurely, a mother long since turned into a memory, a stepmother that seems to have come from a nightmare, and a sinister family mansion. Also, an adult life that never quite begins: the curse of childhood, the mark of orphanhood, the impossibility of breaking bonds once formed. "The Dutch House" is a story about the triumph of love over evil. A victory steeped in loss and largely hidden, because ultimately the reader must figure out whose side they are on and whether there was a villain—and if so, who.