Vinegar Hill

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Summary: Finally, Oprah has chosen a quality book!
Review: Although this book carries on the tiresome theme of abuse that is a staple of Oprah's choices, at least we are treated to writing that is much superior to her usual choices. The prose is beautiful, the characters are well-drawn, and the plot is very easy to get caught up in; you can easily read it in one evening. The writing contained a lot of beautiful imagery. I did think the family's "secret" was too obvious and easy to figure out; it took me only a few pages and I am usually pretty dense when it comes to that. The book seemed similar to some of Anne Tyler's works, but in addition to the usual cast of eccentric characters, there are a few really mean and vicious ones. Overall the book is much better than most new ficiton, and I hope the author will be giving us more.

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Summary: A transforming and liberating experience
Review: Vinegar Hill was strangely oppressing at times--the authorpulls you right into the life of the main character! I found this bookon the forgotten shelves of a little, secluded resort in Ambergris Caye, Belize, this summer. Vinegar Hill even made me forget the tropical paradise to shove me into the face of desperation and ultimately HOPE, the latter for many women who feel trapped in the same nightmare. Thanks, Oprah, for putting this book in so many more hands.

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Summary: This book helps you grow by sharing different perspectives
Review: I am very glad I read this book. It is extremely well written but beyond that, I felt drawn to it because is shows so clearly how we all can see things quite differently even though we're looking at the same thing. That perspective has helped me in my healing work as a Shaman. I also liked the characters, even though some of them I didn't like as people, because they gave me the opportunity to share emotions and to grow from that while reading. If you are looking for a novel that is both disturbing and offering hope, thus, presenting a Yin/Yang perspective of life, then read Vinegar Hill.

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Summary: Another Oprah Flop
Review: This book just kept skipping and skipping. After reading a chapter, the next would be so totally off that I wondered all the time what is this author talking about. The only book from Oprah's Book Club that I totally enjoyed was "Songs in Ordinary Time. Maybe, one day I'll try another of the authors books, but not right now.

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Summary: Moving and Unsettling
Review: Without a hint of melodrama, the secrets of a family ruled twice over -- externally by an abusive and hateful patriarch, and internally by an oppressive, formalistic, religious devotion -- are played out through the eyes of an outsider, the family's daughter-in-law, Ellen, compelled by her husband's job loss to move her family in with his parents. As we learn more of each family member's life story, we see that the only chance Ellen has to save her personal soul is to abandon her religious soul, as well as all of her female role models. Although I had absolutely nothing in common with the characters (the novel is set in a Catholic, German-American farming community in Wisconsin in 1972) I was unable to put this novel down. The prose is elegant, lean, and very special.

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Summary: Ansay is one of the best fiction writers in our country.
Review: I have read many of Ansay's works, including-- just by luck-- a few of her earliest stories. This novel shares with all of her writing her amazing combination of unflinching toughness and unsappy tenderness.

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Summary: A first-rate book by a first-time novelist.
Review: _Vinegar Hill_ is, ultimately, a story about different perspectives, the different views held by a group of family members watching the collapse of old traditions and, on a much more personal level, the collapse of a marriage. Mansay deals with some of the toughest problems of family and relationships, using characters you will alternately hate and care for.

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Summary: The in-laws from hell!
Review: If you ever had a bad in-law experience, this book might help to put things in perspective. It could be worse, you could have in-laws like the one's in this book.

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Summary: The New Yorker Was Wrong
Review: The New Yorker said (quoted on the back of the book) that the last line of the book made it all worthwhile. Here's a tip. It doesn't.
And why didn't any of the reviewers feel sorry for James? He was caught in as much conflict as Ellen! Sure, at first I thought he was boorish, but as you read on and find out where he's been, I would think people (and especially his wife) would have some compassion for him. I guess they're a perfect example of what a lack of communication brings.

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Summary: Sharp and bitter
Review: This is such a bitter book with biting, sharp prose which leaves an acid taste in the mouth,
When Ellen Griers' husband James loses his job in 1972, he insists that they must return to his family home in Vinegar Hill, Wisconsin, to live with his parents. Ellen finds a teaching job at the local school while also cleaning and cooking for her in-laws, a thoroughly nasty pair who find fault with everything she and her children do and who go out of their way to make them feel unwanted.
Margartet-Mary, her mother-in-law, is delighted to have her son back under her thumb and, under her influence, and that of her equally revolting husband, makes Ellens' and the childrens' lives a total misery, under the guise of their strict version of Catholic religion, a rigid faith full of subtle cruelties. In the beginning of the book, Ellens' husband seems to be a normal although weak man, but under the influence of his parents, he does the weak mans' trick of buckling under to make life easier for himself. Towards the end of the story, the reason for some of Margaret-Marys' bitterness is revealed but it still doesn't make her any more pleasant and it makes one wonder if her nastier traits (and those of her husband) were always present in James' character or are they only b eing developed as his depression and his dependency on them grows? Not a book for the faint hearted or for those who are feeling a bit down!