Vinegar Hill: Summary and book reviews of Vinegar Hill by A Manette Ansay, plus links to an excerpt from Vinegar Hill and a biography of A Manette Ansay.

In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author A. Mannete 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 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.

Media Reviews

The New Yorker Ansay transcends both feminist epic and Midwestern gothic to achieve, finally the lunar world of tragedy. This world is lit by the measured beauty of her prose, and the book's final line is worth the pain it takes to get there.   Chicago Tribune Sweet, tender, and chilling.   Washington Post Book One of the best books of the year.   Publishers Weekly 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.   Kirkus Reviews Lovely prose, but only for those who can stomach the content. Madison Smartt Bell A brilliant, bitter book…Manette Ansay's prose style cuts with a diamond edge. Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club A modern-day Little House on the Prairie gone mad…Manette Ansay is a powerful storyteller with lyrical gifts, and a wry, observant eye.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Dj
Vinegar Hill
I read alot of books. This was boring and very distrubing. Yes you will want to keep reading in hopes it gets better. The ending is boring and disappointing.

Rated of 5 by book worm
Vinegar Hill is one of those books you can't put down! You just have to read it!

Rated of 5 by godess0161
This was one of the most intense stories of a homemaker tring to find herself and dealing with the "in-laws". I found this book to be very enjoable and hope everyone gets a chance to read it sometime.

Rated of 5 by salty fries
one word. baaaaaaaaaaaaaam!

Rated of 5 by Sarah
A great book. I couldn't put it down. You know you have a good book when the trials of the protagonist are so painful that it gets difficult to keep turning the pages and read more, and yet unable to put them down because you need resolve as much...   Read More

Rated of 5 by D. Fisher
By far, my favorite book of all time. A. Manette Ansay pulls you in with her ability to take you through and back through time. She avoids the laborious over-description of the characters and their surroundings. Involvement this story comes...   Read More

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Books with similar themes

• Novels
  
• Gothic
  
• USA 
  
• Midwest 
  
• Minn. Wis. Iowa 
  
• 1960s & '70s 
  
• 1st Books/1st Novels 
  
• Religious or Spiritual Themes