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Vinegar Hill
Vinegar Hill
Vinegar Hill
Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

Vinegar Hill

Written by A. Manette Ansay

Narrated by Debra Monk

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Manette Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilt 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 yhoung woman's passionate spirit. And here Ellen must find the strength to endure, change, and grow in the all-pervading darkness that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateOct 3, 2006
ISBN9780061171567
Author

A. Manette Ansay

A. Manette Ansay is the author of eight books, including Vinegar Hill, Midnight Champagne (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Blue Water. She has received the Pushcart Prize, two Great Lakes Book Awards, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She teaches in the MFA writing program at the University of Miami.

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Reviews for Vinegar Hill

Rating: 3.6458333333333335 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

48 ratings33 reviews

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  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Boring and discombobulated. This is the type of book where you hope it gets interesting at some point. You read a chapter and think "What?!? I hope the next chapter explains that." And then there's something else that confounds you. Finally, there's a climax and the book is over. There are better things to be reading than this, I promise.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Ugh. I didn't enjoy this story. I didn't like the characters nor the dysfunctional family they all belonged to. I did, however, like the imagery Ansay was able to bring to the story. (i.e. Thunderheads bruised the horizon.) Because of the great writing, I finished the book. Unless you really like to read about dysfunctional families, better pass this one up, unless, you love good writing, like I do. Then it is worth the read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dark, cold and profound. I love books like this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a quietly powerful book. It's about a wife and mother and her extended family and her husband's extended family, set in the early 1970s. It's a statement about how cruelty and abuse affect each generation, and perhaps how difficult it is to break that cycle. It's about those who live with victims and how it affects everyone. And it's about a woman breaking free of this repression and madness. It's also about how twisted religion can be and has been in many lives. This book borders on 5 stars for me, but I selected 4 because in just a few places, it seemed disconnected. When I finished the book, I wanted to read it again to get the details I missed or didn't understand in the early reading. Other than that, I thought the writing was brilliant.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    An enjoyable read. Written very well. You can feel the depression and desperation in the characters. A little odd and shocking at times, but what's a story if it doesn't surprise you? Worth the time to read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I live in the Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, so the title is what originally drew me to this book. It's set not in Brooklyn, but in a conservative, predominantly Catholic area of the Midwest in the 1970s.
    If I wanted to be snide, I'd say this is a book about how being forced to move in with your in-laws will destroy your marriage, but that's obviously too glib. There are a few finely drawn characters and a real struggle to keep love alive in an atmosphere that seems determined to kill it.
    Worth a read, but be warned that I would have much preferred some additional denouement; the suddenness of the ending dampened my enthusiasm for the book, which I had enjoyed up to that point.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A woman's struggle to survive as an individual while living with her in-laws and distant husband. An Oprah book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    i did not care much for the book . though i like dark and depressing plots if they are accompanied with enough punch in other ways ( twist in the story, some humor, clever development of personalities etc) this would have been good as a short story but to go through 272 pages about an unhappy marriage and waiting to be at least satisfied with the ending if not delighted, the predictable ending was just unforgivable.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Horrible book. Not that well written and it just plods along aimlessly, finally reaching a climax in the final few pages. Seriously left me feeling completely empty and annoyed that I put in the effort to read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Mary-Margaret & Fritz, as James has lost his job. Ellen and James have two children, Amy & Bert. Fritz is not the most friendly and rather mean to the children and to everyone that is living in the house. There is a very strong Catholic influence with Ellen's family and also James' family. In the home, there are Virgin Mary statues, the Last Supper, etc. and Ellen feels inundated with all of this. She becomes the wife, mother, maid, caretaker, etc for the whole household, including working as a teacher.This was a depressing saga and I didn't really feel much for the characters. I know it was written about a different generation, but found I had no tolerance for the demeanor of these people.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    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 strength to endure, change, and grow in the all-pervading darkness that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves.This story is tragic, bitter and vengeful but at the end, you have no other choice but to empathize with the characters. They were all victims; products of sad and unfortunate circumstances. I have to admit, when i completed this book i felt heavy like i had absorbed all of Ellen's troubles, her concerns and fears. It took me a little while to remove myself from the book, evidence that the story engrosses you.Most of the characters were woven with a negative element; regret, hatred, sadness, emptiness, loss of innocence. Yet, these elements did not feel strange or displaced because the author meant them to be apart of the reality of living in a small, tight-knitted, religious based community.I really like how the characters were constructed by the author. She used similarities between them to help place some of the stories in perspective. For example James and his mother Mary Margaret, shared similar characteristic straits and by extension similar stories. James and his brother Mitch shared the same story as Mary Margaret and Salomie. Ellen grows to realize that she shares a similar story to Ann. It is this aspect of circularity that really helps to cement the stories of these characters.At times i felt frustrated with the setting of the book. Reading it in a modern setting, as a young independent woman and knowing all the things that i want in life, i felt like Ellen was foolish for feeling guilty for wanting those same exact things. But then again the story was set in the 1970's when values were much different to how they are now. Even the advice that Barb gives her seems like a novel idea in that setting but to me made complete sense.To lift the story or rather to add hope to it, the author uses the act of selfishness. In fact the theme is almost glorified in the way that Milton made the devil look like a tragic hero. Ann, Ellen and Barb felt like their only hope was to be selfish and to do what they had to, to survive. Sometimes it came across as harsh but when you weight it against the situations that each character faced, selfishness really seemed like the most logical option. Indeed it was the only way for Ellen to be triumphant in the end.There were a few quotes that stood out for me in this book. Here are some of them to wet your appetite."The house is as rigid, as precise as a church, and there was nothing to disturb its ways until three months ago, when Ellen and James and the children moved in...." pg5"There are secrets everywhere in this house. Ellen walks around them, passes through them, sensing things without understanding what they mean." pg16"No one gets used to anything, they just get numb. That's what's happening to you. You let him get away with anything he wants, him and his parents too." pg142"Perhaps Mary-Margaret once stood beneath a night sky like this one, but she stood in one place so long that not even Ann could save her." pg 236I really enjoy this book and i hope that by reading this post, you too will give it a read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As a young girl, Ellen Grier had always believed that marriage was meant to be between two people who loved each other deeply. She and her husband James may have had a marriage of convenience, but that didn't necessarily mean that they couldn't come to love each other over time. Despite their initial differences, Ellen was determined to be a good wife for James - as dutiful and as proper a wife as either of their strict German Catholic families could possibly want.Thirteen years pass, and it is now 1972. Circumstance has carried Ellen Grier and her family back to her and James' hometown of Holly's Field, Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her recently unemployed husband, Ellen has brought their two children - their daughter Amy, and their son Herbert - into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill. This family of four now lives with James' parents - his domineering and abusive father Fritz and smotheringly attentive mother Mary-Margaret - and Ellen has begun to find their new living situation increasingly intolerable.The house on Vinegar Hill is a loveless home - suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and mired in the harshness of routine. A home where calculated cruelty is a way of life, preserved and perpetuated in the service of an uncompromising, punitive and angry God. Behind this facade of false piety, there are sins and secrets in this place that have the strength to crush a vibrant young woman's passionate spirit. And it is here that Ellen must find the strength to endure, change, and grow in the pervasive darkness and bleakness of spirit that threatens to destroy everything she is and everyone she loves.First of all, let me say that despite this being such a tragically heart-wrenching story, I really enjoyed reading the book. So many characters really resonated with me, that I avidly wanted to know what would happen to them next. I would definitely give this book an A!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Mediocre. I couldn't make it past the first three pages. I tried twice. It was just not my style - too boring.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The setting of this book was aptly named, Vinegar Hill. What a sour place it was! It tells the story of Ellen, who begins as a typical submissive Catholic wife. She goes with her husband and children to live with the husband's parents against her will. They are nasty and abusive and a trial to live with. Throughout the book I was hoping that Ellen would gather all her determination and courage and do something about her situation. The book shows how tradition can get in the way of common sense.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A woman's struggle to survive as an individual while living with her in-laws and distant husband. An Oprah book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It is interesting that I read this book so quickly because I didn't like any of the characters, there were numerous parts that made me feel quite depressed, and the overall emotion I had while reading it was one of bleak hopelessness. However, it is very well-written with a concise, spare style, which easily made it a page-turner for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dark, but unable to put it down. It tells the life of a Catholic Family that lives on Vinegar Hill in the 1970s. Son Jimmy moves the family in with his parents, and wife Ellen works and is the servant to his parents in their stifling house. Everything is life perpetuated by a vengeful God, and false piety prevails
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Depressing, and yet so so real! What a family.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5

    It's the 1970s, and James Grier has lost his job; accordingly, he takes his family to live with his elderly parents in the small Wisconsin town of Holly's Field. For his wife Ellen and their two children this is a descent into a pit of misery, for James's father is -- and always has been -- viciously abusive, and this has the effect of poisoning all relationships between those around him. In the course of Vinegar Hill we learn this and a whole string of similar secrets, many of which seem to share the theme that mere acts of Fate, and foolishly considered responses to them, can determine so much of our lives -- as for example the revelation that James and Ellen are married only because years ago she accepted a lift from him, the car got stuck overnight in the snow, and, even though they hadn't so much as kissed, the only course left open to them by the prurient faux-"respectability" of others was to wed.

    In essence, then, Vinegar Hill is a sort of portrait of pain -- primarily Ellen's, but the rest of the cast are suffering too, mainly because of each other. There's some good writing, marred every now and then by something obnoxiously pretentious ("Sometimes he feels his mind swallow him whole, the way a snake swallows a plain, white egg" -- snakes presumably having quite different ways of swallowing eggs of other colours). While reading this book I certainly didn't feel I was wasting my time, but when I put it down I found myself a tad frustrated that I'd had to read an entire novel for the sake of what's really just a vignette.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    has been a very interesting book
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A very somber, melancholy tale of cruelty, depression and deep emotional despair. The author did an admirable job of conveying the smothering and oppressed sensations the main character, Ellen, was feeling when forced to live in the house with her cruel in-laws. While the book was a good read overall, I tound some segments (specifically, the distant husband rushing back to give his wife a hug, the part where the family savings is taken, and the final walk with the daughter) awkward and somehow incomplete. This is the first book I've read by this author and I must say Ansay does "bleak" exceptionally well. I'll be very interested in seeing of her work as she matures and grows as a writer.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    + Well-written.- No likeable characters, made me feel uneasy pretty much the whole time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Good. I enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the story of the oppressiveness of religion and traditon on family live, particularly (but not exclusively) on women. When Ellen's husband James loses his job, they and their two children move in with James's parents. The in-laws don't like Ellen; she is expected to do most of housework and they are not happy that she has a job rather then being a stay-home mother. James is not his father's favourite son, and was abused as a child. The cycle of dysfunction continues, as Ellen longs for a better life, James struggles with his emotions, and his parents argue or ignore each other. The book is so well written. Just when I thought I had a good understanding of James, the focus switches and he becomes a much more complex character. Set in the early 70s, the story takes place when Women were just beginning to expect more than a life of obeying their husbands and attending Sunday mass. Ellen's struggles are those many women faced.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A circular story where the characters continue in a tight and slow moving miasma. Ansay keeps the reader uncertain of the outcome and allows for some real frustration to build. Set in the 1960's and with patriarchal and religious sensibilities guiding thier decision making, it's hard for a modern reader to accept the slow pace of change and lack of action on the part of the various characters: there ends up being just enough history revealed to allow for some sympathy for most of them, but not all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ellen is caught in a time of change--its the 1960's and the role of women is in flux. Her strong Roman Catholic faith is called into question by her failing marriage and her impossible in-laws with whom she is now living with her husband and children. She is expected to be the pillar of strength for everyone else and sacrifice her own needs, and yet she recognizes the desperation other generations of women have felt when she uncovers her mother-in-law's secret. At the novel's conclusion, she strikes out on her own in a way most modern women would applaud.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A bitter, tragic book of abuse both physical and mental in a small town. Behind a facade of god fearing people, Ellen marries an abusive man and doesn't see anything different to live by as she moves into her husband's home, a home with his equally abusive parents. Mary Margaret and Fitz are horrid characters whose son James can be seen to follow their footsteps. The abusive is so out there. Mary Margaret says horrible things to Ellen, her daughter in law and to the children too. Fitz physically beats them.We see that James and Ellen's two children soon will fall into the cycle. Or will Ellen figure it out?
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I don't care what the description says, there is nothing "triumphant" about this.

    I felt obligated to try an "Oprah's book club" book. I'm a woman, so these books are supposed to speak to me, right? Books I feel "obligated" to read are funny things. They either turn out to be amazing or dreadful. Guess which one this was.

    I'm not sure what kind of audience this book was written for. It it bears any resemblance to your life, it's going to depress you further. If it doesn't, it's just going to depress you, end of story.

    The one-dimensional characters plodded through their lives, lifting their heads long enough for a crop of flashback sequences that made it clear that their lives had always been full of the kind of bleak everyday horrors that made them the bleak horrible people they became. The story limps on to a conclusion that is no real conclusion at all. It just kind of stops. There is this vague suggestion that things are going to be better now, but it's almost impossible to believe it after the rest of the novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wasn't sure about this at first, but the story improved steadily and tension built up. Hard not to sympathise with the main character, oarticularly given the circumstances of her marriage, though I tended to wonder why she didn't just leave. Some interesting moral dilemmas towards the end. Also I also thought the teacher friend was a good, likeable character, her lifestyle providing counterpoint to the main character's own circumstances
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was amazingly creepy in all the right ways. The writing was easy to read and the pages flew by. This is one book I wish would have never ended.