Customer Reviews

The Hills at Home: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've never seen a dozen characters established so quickly and so well as in this lively comedy. The author places a crowd of relatives upon the stage and sets them to milling about very plausibly. Everything that happens springs from character. Each of these souls inhabit a unique universe established through lnaguage and detail. The small moments are as rich as the large. Packed with information, insight, poetry and play, this is a book that you could read standing up on a commute train or aloud to a roomful of discerning friends.

Why 4 stars? Well, no book is perfect. Yes, this one is on the longish side, and things are tied up a little too neatly and quickly in the end.

But for this book, the journey to the end is more than half the fun. Very few authors write novels this richly textured, descriptive, and laugh-out-loud funny any more. My co-workers have been so intrigued by my snorts and chortles at this lunchtime read that they are lining up to read it as well.

I understand that this is the first of a series, so I am eagerly anticipating the next book.

This is without doubt one of the funniest books I have read in a long time. I have seen criticsm that her sentences are too long and convoluted but I think they match their subject matter beautifully. Her characters are bizarre (in differing degrees) and Clark's language suits them. I am more than satisfied with this quiet, gentle, soothing, subtle and extremely witty dip into the Hills' life. This book could go on for 1,000 pages and I would be more than happy. I look forward to her promised new novel.

Had I seen this book on the shelves of a bookstore I doubt if I would have even bothered to pick it up. But a review so glowing and appealing made me order the book and a discovery was made. Nancy Clark immerses us in a long, dense novel that is less about plot (very little of that) and all about accute observation of manners and all the details of characters that is absolutely note perfect. This is not about the internal world of characters, but more about the bump and thump of people living together under one roof. I am surprised Ms Clark has not published elsewhere. Her long, complex highly detailed sentences are beautifully polished and forbid a quick read. One of the most stylish books I've read this year.

This is an amazing first book. It is intricate, insightful and interesting. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and was pleased to see that the author is working on a second book.

The book involves a disparate group of individuals, most of whom are related. Only Lily Hill, matriarch and spinster aunt of the clan is living in the dilapidated home until one by one or family by family, relatives begin to descent on the New England family home. All are just visiting but the "visit" never seems to end. They are a fascinating cast of characters. There is Lily's thrice married brother Harvey, a hopelessly weird "new-age" type niece Ginger and her very practical teenage daughter, Betsy. Then comes an out of work nephew and his wife and four children. Finally, a grandson-an aspiring stand up comic and his girl friend show up. The book is wonderfully and dryly comic as these characters settle in and attempt to co-exist.

Then enters a new element, a graduate student who wants to study the Hill family for his dissertation on a dying breed, the WASP. The book covers about a year in time and like the graduate student, studies the characters in differing situations. Coming home, a history, a holiday, love and leaving are each touched upon. Each character is well draw and interesting as they settle in, fall in love, or reflect on their choices in life. I found this book to be charming, witty and wonderful. In so many new highly lauded books I have found that while the books may be interesting or well written, I ultimately did not like anyone in the book. I may have enjoyed the book, but I did not care about what happened to the central characters. The Hills, however are fascinating and I hope to hear more of them.

What fun! Nancy Clark has written a cheerful comedy of manners that sustains its humor and high spirits from first page to last. "The Hills at Home" neatly combines good writing, appealing characterizations, and shrewd observations into a novel that has plenty of depth and enough highs to keep readers happily squeezed into the dinner table at the Hill's for the duration of one very particular year.

Retired teacher Lily Hill lives in the decaying Hill family home in the town of Towne, somewhere in New England. Relatives crowd in for the summer-her crusty but romantic brother Harvey, her niece and teen daughter fleeing Mom's Midwestern marriage, a former Wall Street nephew, his wife and four adolescents, a wanna-be comic great nephew and his West Virginia girlfriend-and none of them go home. It is 1989, the Berlin Wall is falling and unstable domestic economics have put a number of Hills on the outs. No one has told Lily they will be staying, they just do. And Yankee hospitality requires that she take it all in stride, even when a sociology student arrives to observe a WASP family in their natural element.

The Hills are all quirky and believable, notably the teenagers who are charming and exasperating in equal doses, and the book will make you laugh out loud. Author Clark is such a confident writer that it is hard to believe that this is her first novel. The good news is that she is at work on another book about the Hills, and considering where she's left them at the end of "The Hills At Home," it's bound to be a doozy.

The Hills live in a big house on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Lily Hill is the somewhat unwilling hostess to her scattered and self-absorbed family as they come home to deal with their problems. At first she does not mind putting fresh flowers in their rooms, but after the welcome wears away, she begins to hoard all the good furniture and puts it away in her room.

This book is a great read. Yes, the sentences are long. Yes there are non sequitars. Yes, there is not a big plot. But that's what life is. Little dramas play out everyday but life isn't a Tom Clancy novel (or whomever writes good plots these days!).

Living in New England all my life and sharing a cottage on Cape Cod with my extended family brought this book home to me. It can be difficult sharing a house with one bathroom, but everyone was there because they wanted to be. The Hills are no exception. The characters are real - from the quiet, well-mannered Lily to the chatterbox Little Becky to the plotting Ginger, everyone had their stories, secrets and desires. Coming home to Towne they found a place to take a break from life and regroup.

The book ends happily and there are 2 more books about the Hills in the works. I will look forward to them.

The Hills at Home is a wonderful story. With a style somewhat like T.R. Pearson, Clark plays with sentences and the words therein. For those who enjoy a plot driven story this may be a disappointing read. Those readers who want a story containing diverse and richly wrought characters should not miss this book. I am anxiously awaiting Clark's sequel.

I picked up this book in May of 2004 and only got about 100 pages into it before I put it down. I originally found it very slow-going, with nothing much to hold my attention. For some reason, I took it back off of the shelf two days ago, and plowed through the remaining 300+ pages in no time. I was able to remember the characters from over a year ago with no difficulty (a feat for me...obviously there are some well-written roles here!) and found the book very entertaining. The best part of the novel is definitely the depth with which Clark describes things...from people to places, you feel ingrained in the book, making it a pleasure to become lost within its covers.

All of that being said, as many prior reviewers have noted, the editing in this book is DEPLORABLE. I don't normally wish ill thoughts on others, but I do hope that whomever was responsible for the editing of this book is no longer in publishing. Really. It's that bad. And to those reviewers who weren't able to finish the book out of disdain for the editing, I fear it gets no better further in to the depths of the book.

So, if you're looking for a good story with evocative descriptions and an entertaining plot, I would recommend this book whole-heartedly. However, if you are a stickler for proper spelling and editing, and expect a book to be professionally reviewed prior to its publication, I would steer clear of this novel. I myself fall somewhere in the middle...Clark's new book has just come out, and I am ambivalent about reading it for fear of encountering the same editing debacle. Maybe I'll wait a few months until the irritation I still clearly feel about this book's shoddy proofing wears off a bit.

I am a patient reader and don't need a lot to keep my attention. Unfortunately, this book just didn't cut it. I would disagree with those who said the characters were well developed. Although each character had a memorable quirk, the author seemed to focus on quantity vs. quality... I kept waiting for the book to get better and it never did! With so many books out there, I'd recommend taking a rain check on this one.