Vinegar Hill (Oprah's Book Club) - Softcover

Ansay, A. Manette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380730138 ISBN 13: 9780380730131

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 1998

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review

Oprah Book ClubŪ 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 the Publisher

Praise for Sister

"A soul aches here, and the future seems forlorn. But Sister rises above that with its frankness and acuity, and the rhythmic beauty of its prose." -The New York Times Book Review

Praise for River Angel

"A writer with a gift for persuasive and shapely narrative...With River Angel, A. Manette Ansay has moved beyond her prior mastery of the family scene to lucid, eloquent representation of the commingled and conflicting lives of a town." -The New York Times Book Review

Praise for Midnight Champagne

"A funny, touching novel...[Ansay] weaves in and out of the sundry dramas with grace, warmth, and a good deal of humor, striking a fine balance between comedy and compassion." -The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0380730138
• ISBN 13: 9780380730131
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256