Midnight Champagne [Hardcover]

A. Manette Ansay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1999

April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon have known each other for just three short months, so their Valentine's Day wedding at a chapel near the shores of Lake Michigan has both families in an uproar. Meanwhile, at the nearby Hideaway Lodge, a domestic quarrel ends in tragedy. As April and Caleb's life together begins, death parts another man and woman in angry violence -- and as the two stories gradually intersect, their juxtaposition explores the tangled roots of vulnerability and desire. From the novel's opening epigraph from Chekhov -- "If you feel loneliness, then marriage is not for you" -- to its final moments in the honeymoon suite, A. Manette Ansay weaves tenderness and fury, passion and wonder into a startling tapestry of love in all its paradox and power.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A. Manette Ansay's novel about a wedding day 30 miles north of the Illinois state line has some of the earthy authenticity and knowing emotional detail of Jane Smiley. Yet the comic, melancholic voice in Midnight Champagne is very much her own. The scene is Valentine's Day at the Great Lakes Chapel and Hideaway Lodge, amid Wisconsin winter fields "the featureless white of amnesia." The place used to be a raunchy roadhouse where "room 33" was (and perhaps still is!) the code word for an assignation. A less libidinous lady ghost is also said to wander the halls. But the real nightmares here are of the everyday variety. April, 22 years old, a rebel artist, is abruptly marrying her new boyfriend from Nashville. Her family can't see why she dropped her all-too-steady ex-beau Barney, who sold Scotchgard products at the local Magic Carpet. Brooding Barney, invited to the wedding by mistake, can't see why either--though flashbacks illuminate the reason.

As the nuptials hit various snags (like a storm that knocks out the lights), April's family and friends reflect on vanishing marital passion, the presence of an ex-husband's pregnant young wife, the emotional mosh pit of the bride's tossed bouquet, and the kids'-eye view of it all. One does yearn for a more take-charge omniscient narrator to fuse the many characters' insightful musings--the novel's got a scattery feel. But it's a privilege to meet these people, visit this real-seeming place, and savor such flavorful sentences. --Tim Appelo

From Library Journal

In her newest work, Ansay (River Angel, LJ 12/97) puts us in the middle of a Valentine's Day wedding party at a kitschy wedding chapel and theme motel in rural Wisconsin. Once rumored to be a brothel, the motel has undergone an overzealous redecorating that hasn't improved its reputation. Outside a blizzard is raging, trapping even the bride's local relatives and creating a bonanza at the cash bar. Meanwhile, a domestic quarrel in a motel room goes awry, and a nervous stranger crashes the wedding supper. When some of the younger wedding guests investigate the motel, they find out more than they bargained for. Ansay flirts dangerously with sitcom-like stereotypesAthe bride's deadpan mother, her perfect mother-in-law, her rotten little sister, even a couple of ghostsAbut (except for the polka band) she keeps them from going over the top. By deftly maneuvering inside the heads of her characters, she succinctly informs us of family history. The combination of dry Midwestern wit with a light touch of the Gothic makes for hilarious reading. Recommended for popular fiction collections.AReba Leiding, James Madison Univ., Harrisonburg, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (May 19, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688152449
• ISBN-13: 978-0688152444
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, bittersweet story of midwestern love, July 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Midnight Champagne (Hardcover)

A.Manette Ansay has a gift for character development and description. She provides just the right amount of both to keep the reader engaged and involved but not overburdened. Like RIVER ANGEL, MIDNIGHT CHAMPAGNE deals with slightly quirky, yet believeable Midwesterners from a small town. April is an individualist with an altruistic bent. Caleb is just sweet and loveable in a goofy sort of way. Their families and friends are basically simple folk just trying to deal with everyday life and love.

The message of love flows throughout the book--it's not always beautiful and glossy. It can be cruel, murderous and frightening at times. It can kill but it can heal, too. As with RIVER ANGEL, there is a wistful, bittersweet quality to this book. I was hooked after the first page and really didn't want it to end.

Another winner for A.Manette Ansay!

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A toast to A. Manette Ansay..., May 15, 2001

By 

Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Midnight Champagne: A Novel: A Novel (Paperback)

Attention all Vinegar Hill haters: Midnight Champagne will change your mind! Now, I am one that loved Vinegar Hill but know lots of people who didn't. This time around, A. Manette Ansay has written a less depressing and more indulgent story. It takes place in the course of one day with lots of characters that each get a turn to speak. So I beg those who have put off reading anything else by Ansay to read Midnight Champagne and give her a chance to redeem herself. You won't be disappointed.

After three months of dating, 22-year-old April Leisgang and Caleb Shannon are getting married. Most of the family is against this marriage and especially the place where it's held - the nondenominational Great Lakes Chapel and Hideaway Lodge. Formally a notorious dance hall, roadhouse and brothel, it is rumored to be haunted by the mistress of the house, Greta Flame, who was murdered by one of her lovers back in its heyday. Such sets the stage for an unforgettable, eerie, and life-changing celebration....

The novel takes us from ceremony and reception through dinner and dance and ends with bouquet toss and midnight champagne. Written through the eyes of various characters, we get the opportunity to know the feelings, thoughts and goings-on of parents, grandparents, cousins, children and hotel staff. In doing so, I believe A. Manette Ansay has created the whole picture, a testimony of the love, pain, disappointments, hopes, and secrets felt, endured and kept hidden by the family and intensified by the union of April and Caleb and frequent visits to the cash bar. Readers are everywhere at once, witnesses to this spectacular party, omniscient flies on the wall.

Midnight Champagne holds a goodie bag of emotions within its pages, a delicious and intoxicating mix, a declaration of the course of marriage and the many side roads it can take. Like listening to stories around a campfire: passionate and revealing, exciting and anxious, haunting and uninhibited. Much better than Vinegar Hill and certainly places A. Manette Ansay at the top of my reading list. Wonderful!

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raise your glass to A. Manette Ansay., June 18, 2001

By 

Caro (Newark, Notts United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midnight Champagne: A Novel: A Novel (Paperback)

Members of my reading group recommended this, my first A. Manette Ansay book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was reminded of one of those 'fly on the wall' documentaries that are so popular at the moment. I was able to sit in, watching and listening to a whole cast of characters as they interacted (or didn't), from ceremony and reception, through to the bouquet toss and midnight champagne. Better still, I was even privy to their individual thoughts and dreams. The blurb on my book cover, talks of two stories, April and Caleb's wedding and the Hideaway Lodge quarrel, intersecting, but I felt there were dozens of stories weaving in and out of each other and culminating in what I thought was the perfect champagne toast. The characters are beautifully drawn and I defy anyone not to find at least one they recognise from their own family. From the opening page, I was drawn into a world so real, I could swear I was there, in my glad rags, enjoying the wedding myself.