Vinegar Hill (Oprah's Book Club) [Paperback]

A. Manette Ansay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1998

In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilty and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill--a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine--where calculated cruelty is a way of life preserved and perpetuated in the service of a rigid, exacting and angry God. Behind a facade of false piety, there are sins and secrets in this place that could crush a vibrant young woman's passionate spirit. And here Ellen must find the straight to endure, change, and grow in the all-pervading darkness that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Oprah Book Club® Selection, November 1999: Vinegar Hill is an appropriate address for the characters who populate A. Manette Ansay's novel of the same name. After all, when Ellen Grier and her family return to the rural hamlet of Holly's Field, Wisconsin, it's not exactly a happy homecoming. Her husband, James, has been laid off from his job in Illinois. And for the moment, the family has moved in with Ellen's in-laws, Fritz and Mary-Margaret, an unhappy pair who dislike their daughter-in-law almost as much as they despise each other:

The first time Ellen sat at this table she was twenty years old, bright-cheeked after a spring afternoon spent walking along the lakefront with James, planning their upcoming wedding. It was 1959 and she was eager to make a good impression. She didn't know then that Mary-Margaret disliked her, that she was considered Jimmy's mistake.

Thirteen years later, in 1972, Ellen is back at the table with no escape in sight. Both she and her husband do find work. Yet James seems to settle a tad too easily into his old life, and shows no interest in finding a place of their own. Even worse, his job takes him away from home for weeks at a time, leaving Ellen to cope with her abusive in-laws.

In Vinegar Hill Ansay paints a searing portrait of the Midwest's dark side, of a rural culture infected with despair and ruled over by an unforgiving God. Yet she does hold out a grain of hope, too. Just as Ellen seems permanently entangled in familial desperation, she makes a surprising discovery about James's long-dead grandmother--a woman whose rebellious spirit inspires Ellen to rescue herself and her loved ones from the impinging darkness. This late-breaking redemption doesn't cancel out the preceding unhappiness: Vinegar Hill remains a tough, uncompromising tale, one that requires some fortitude to read. But those with the heart for it will be rewarded with fine, spare prose and a hopeful ending. --Alix Wilber

From Publishers Weekly

Set in 1972, Ansay's debut novel revolves around Ellen Grier's struggle for liberation-liberation from her marriage to James, from her virtual enslavement to her sanctimonious, cruel in-laws and from what she see as the stultifying demands of her religion, Roman Catholicism. Financial difficulties have forced James and Ellen, along with their two children, to move back to the small Wisconsin town where they grew up and where they now share an acrimonious and joyless life with James's parents. Virtually every character is victimized by a private misery that causes pain and alienation and that in turn victimizes others. Ansay, who teaches creative writing at Vanderbilt, is adept at delineating these worlds of suffering, and her language can be both apt and beautiful. But she offers too many descriptions of the nightmares and waking bad dreams that seem to afflict all of her characters, and the reader begins to share the sense of being caught in a bad dream. As the story concentrates more on Ellen's search for identity-a familiar tale presented here in a familiar way-this sense of nightmare is intensified by an impression of deja vu. Though uneven, the novel offers glimpses of Ansay's potential to deliver a more coherent book next time.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; 2nd edition (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380730138
• ISBN-13: 978-0380730131
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (290 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,992,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Enjoyable January 31, 2000

By D. LEE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Before purchasing this book, I read a number of customer reviews on Amazon.com. The recurring theme was that the book was depressing and that the main character was weak. Notwithstanding a vast number of 'negative' reviews, I purchased the book and was pleasantly surprised. I found that the only way to fully appreciate the story was to view the situation from the standpoint of a 30 something year old woman, living in a small Mid-western farming town, conservative Catholic during the early 1970's. Essentially, I viewed the book as a story about the struggle of a woman to establish and preserve her own identity in the face of outside forces i.e., family, religion, in-laws, expectations etc. I basically saw is as a conflict between what she should do as a good "Christian wife and mother" and what she needed to do as a person and how she ultimately resolved that conflict. I also saw Ellen as a woman who was trapped by those outside forces and expections. Although many reviewers of this book thought that Ellen was somewhat weak and spineless, I felt that she had an enormous amount of strength to do what she needed to do in light of the pressures of outside expectations. I think that the base example was when she went to talk to her sister about leaving James. Her sisters response was one of shock and disbelief and her sisters advice was to have another child. I think that Ellen would truly have been weak if she were not aware that her life was not right and changes needed to be made. However, since she was aware of the problems in her life/marriage and decided to take steps, particularly at a time when leaving your husband (in the Catholic religion) was something that women did not do, showed a great deal of strength. She knew that if she left her husband, she would have absolutely no support or understanding from either her family, church, friends, etc. Her desire to make a better life for herself and her children resulted in her taking measures such that she and she alone was in control of her life and destiny as opposed to outside circumstances. Another point that was interesting was her realization that the killing of the twins was Ann's way of making sure that Mary Margaret was not trapped. It was with that realization that Ellen realized that she was not alone and did not have to be trappped. All in all, good book.

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An Enjoyable Read November 30, 1999

By Maurice Williams VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Kinda wicked, kinda crazy, but definitely a good read. The writing was clear, the story moving. I view this novel as a reflection of how blind faith can lead one astray. Although an excellent tale of one's ability to endure and overcome, I was slightly disappointed that Ansay didn't expose us to the new Ellen, strong and confident, sturdy and assured. Even though most of Oprah's book seem to have a similar theme (struggle, oppression, eventual self-actualization), she does an excellent job of selecting novels that cover the theme creatively, and realistically.

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding! November 22, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I bought this book in spite of it being an Oprah pick, and I was very satisfied with it. The characters are so richly drawn, and after reading this, I very much appreciate what my mother's generation went through (I am in my early 30's). I saw alot of the women of my mother's generation in Ellen and Barb (characters in the book), and now have a new appreciation for them. This book was hard to put down--you really want to see what happens to everyone.