[.ca] Vinegar Hill (ISBN 0060897848)

From Amazon.co.uk:
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 20 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, Amazon.com

Vinegar Hill:
A brilliant but gloomy story about Ellen who married her high school sweet heart after they became involved after one date. Several years into their marriage, James lost his job and when they began to run out of money, they had to move into his parent's house. Ellen was forced to cook and keep house in a dreary cluttered home with little love and affection. In addition to the terrible surroundings, she lived in a love-less marriage with "Jimmy", an insecure man who was afraid of his parents. Ellen's mother-in-law was a pathetic figure who accepted a life of abuse and despair with her domineering and miserable husband. Together they lived a status-quo existence where they rarely communicated. Each one lived in his/her own world. They did not decorate for Christmas and Ellen's children were not allowed to play and interact as normal children. Finally, Ellen sees the light with the help of her friend; she decides to leave her husband and his parent's home. She takes the kids and moves out to make it on her own... a victorious ending!

The in-laws from hell!:
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.

Loved It!:
The extremely normal and familiar sirtuations that the main character in this novel faces are portrayed fabulously by the author. Although this a debut novel, the language is wonderful, with the author uses many poetic devices and visulozation techniques to get her point across. Very well crafted .. a real winner that every married woman can relate to!

Dutiful Drudgery:
What is it that holds one within a family, a marriage, outside of love and duty? Lack of courage perhaps, or misguided religious inclinations. The protagonist puts up with more than many might because of her strong religious beliefs, dogged beliefs which leaves her a husk of a woman. I cannot emote an empathy for this, but I can empathise with sticking it at all costs even when all is bleak and hopeless and hard by. Ellen's inlaws are mean and spiteful, harsh and narrow minded, and set off Ellen's insecurities to best (worst?) advantage. Her husband is henpecked, not by Ellen who does not know how to and is too spineless to do so, but by his embittered, cruel, old world parents. Everything falls most burdensomely on the children of the marriage, who feel the misery around them, but cannot understand why there is such, save for the fact that it must be all of their fault. Ansay's prose is relentlessly descriptive, the details she pays mind to myriad and minute. Not a good read, not a good ending, but rather a painstaking portrait of a time, a culture, and a mindset.

Dark, dark, dark:
We all know people who struggle to stand up for themselves, who get caught in lifestyles we think we'd never tolerate. We also know their thinking is different from ours and that we cannot judge them for different thinking. Unfortunately, this makes this book no less frustrating. The reader surely wants Ellen to stand up for herself and leave her loser husband, if not for herself then for her children. A casserole over the head of the hateful in-laws might have also been in order. She leaves at last, but it almost seems too little too late.