Danny Conroy grows up in an elaborate mansion in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania known as the Dutch House, and is raised by his real estate investor father and his older sister Maeve; his mother had abandoned the … 展开

Patchett was inspired to use Elkins Park as the novel's setting because when she was a student at Sarah Lawrence College she would spend holidays and weekends with her friend Erica … 展开

According to Book Marks, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on thirty-one critic reviews: fifteen "rave", thirteen "positive", and three "mixed". In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (4.25 out of 5) from the … 展开