Read This and Tell Me What It Says [Paperback]

A. Manette Ansay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2006

In her first full-length story collection, author A. Manette Ansay explores the rural Midwest landscape and the people who inhabit it: ordinary folk with extraordinary inner lives, struggling to make sense of the isolated, sometimes painful, and often intensely religious worlds in which they live. Her are 15 haunting and exquisitely written tales that offer a rare and unforgettable glimpse into the complexities of being human and being alive.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Holly's Field, Wis., the setting for Ansay's well-received debut novel, Vinegar Hill, again serves as background for many of the 15 precisely crafted, haunting stories in her first collection. The people in this town in the heartland of America try to make do with their lots in life, but many of them are already alienated or isolated and know that things will never get any better. In "Ohio," 14-year-old Stuart travels to Massachusetts to visit the father who left the family and the church where he had been a pastor. Stuart's father lives with a woman he is not married to and has a daughter named Mars. Although Stuart's mission is to win his father's heart back to Christ, by the end of his trip it is he who has had his eyes opened, who says he has the "sense you've crossed over to some distant place and stayed just a moment too long, so that return is no longer a possibility." The adults in this harsh Midwestern landscape deal with poverty, sickness, aging and the desire to transcend their daily lives. Geraldine's husband, in "You or Me or Anything," drives off into the snow one day and calls from different points along his meandering route, to tell her that he's not coming back, she should be sure to let the dog in at night, there's a blizzard in Minnesota. The stressed-out 15-year-old narrator of the title story, which won the 1992 Nelson Algren Prize, has become a compulsive thief because it helps her mind to grow "absolutely still, that stillness you get when you walk into a church and know that you are safe there." Pressured by her family's expectations of academic success, she recklessly gambles with her future, and her life. All of Ansay's characters have a dignity earned by coping with their existence; they elicit compassion from the reader, but not pity, because they are strong and will come through. Stubborn and resourceful, they endow her fictional town with presence and credibility.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Poignant, mostly realistic short stories that peel into family lives in a fictional Wisconsin town make up this collection by the author of Vinegar Hill (LJ 8/94). In "Smoke," a widow haunted by her dead husband is protected from him by her cats, who are finally taken away by a well-meaning neighbor. In the title story, a hyperactive father who never learned to read well issues the title's command to his teenage daughter when the mail comes. The daughter is the family's hope; her ambitious mother applies to 50 colleges on her behalf. When she is finally accepted into a music school with a teacher's help, the family's happiness is short-lived as they learn of her brother's arrest. Sad, literary tales with a Midwestern sensibility; for larger general collections.?Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006112012X
• ISBN-13: 978-0061120121
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this author!, May 26, 2003

By 

Kari M. Haug "kittypurrington" (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Read This and Tell Me What It Says: Stories (Paperback)

OK, I have now read pretty much everything written by A. Manette Ansay! I am hooked on her books! I have loved every single one of them, and this one is no exception. She has such a wonderful way of describing regular, down-to-earth people! I liked all the stories in this book. Sure, they may be sad or depressing, but they're written in such a wonderful way!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read This and Weep, June 26, 2003

By 

Barbara A. Lucius (Milwaukee, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Read This and Tell Me What It Says: Stories (Paperback)

I have read all of Ansay, and like her work alot. I never just read her work, I feel it. This collection shows that short stories are her strength. My favorites were the title story, Lies, and Spot Weaknesses. No one who's been a girl or had a daughter should miss Spot Weaknesses. It captures perfectly the pain of adolescence and the mother/daughter dance. Evolution is wonderful, too. Ansay has a way of crystalizing details and exposing emotional truths that we all intuit but rarely articulate. She manages to consistently get things "right", including the snapshots of animals which inhabit virtually all of her stories. I got this book from the library, but plan to buy it to reread and share.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I usually read a lot of nonfiction--memoirs but.., December 18, 2007

By 

Barb F. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Read This and Tell Me What It Says: Stories (Paperback)

This book was discussed on either Public Radio or Oprah had the author on to discuss this book--I can't remember. I read this book all in one day. It is a collection of stories that aren't very long but the characters have depth which allows the reader to feel like you have read a short book after each story. I shared this book with my Mom and my really good friend and they agree; it is a very good book.