It's still a book about wealth and poverty but ultimately I decided to write from the other side of the story from the point of view of Danny and Maeve who grow up very rich and become poor. As I wrote the story I became more and more interested in her children, the people who are left behind. It's the place where everyone wants to live but for her it's just much too much.

Elna was poor and now she has this gorgeous house. The character of Elna is the character I started off with. I wanted to write a novel about somebody who didn't want to be rich. One of the strangest things about writing a novel is that where you wind up is almost never where you think you're going to wind up. And I wanted to write about the kind of stepmother I would be afraid of being. You can write something very autobiographical that has never happened to you because it's what you're afraid of. She said she was writing about the kind of mother she was afraid of being. I was interviewing Zadie Smith about the idea of writing an autobiographical novel. She's almost a fairy-tale evil stepmother.

Maeve and Danny were thrown out of their childhood home by Andrea. I've taken bits and pieces from great houses I've been in over my life and run those details together carved wooden panels, the dining room ceiling, a tiny kitchen in a grand house, the staircase, the ability to see through certain houses. The important thing is that the Dutch House in the book conjures up that feeling. It could have been a museum or a historical home. It may have been someplace you lived or someplace you drove past once.

Everyone has a house or houses they think are spectacular. It exists in my imagination and in the reader's imagination. Is there a real Dutch House that inspired this novel? We talk to Ann Patchett about her novel The Dutch House a powerful and moving story of a bond between two siblings and their childhood in suburban Philadelphia.

The dutch house cover