Further down the A aisle...

Vinegar Hill is another book by A. Manette Ansay. This is the second book I've read lately in which religion plays a big part. This time it's German Catholics in the midwest during the 70s. Women were told to grin and bear it if their husbands mistreated them and look at their own behavior as the possible reason for the mistreatment. This story centers around a young couple who go back to Wisconsin to live with the husband's parents after he lost his job. It's a real horror story of all the abuse Ellen (the young wife) endures at the hands of her husband's parents. The elder father's cruelty toward her husband and the children is beyond horrifying and almost brings Ellen to a breakdown. Vinegar Hill was one of Oprah's Book Club picks and the first novel that brought Ansay some attention as a writer. Her central themes of the two books I've read are unusual and can be depressing, but she manages to find some clear sky to make everything okay. 

It's time to get out of the A section!!!!!!

Latest book of interest is The Wind in the Wheat by Reed Arvin. This book is not one I would have bought in a bookstore because I probably wouldn't have found it there. This was one I would have found in the Parable our own Christian bookstore here in town. Never go there. But I have to say the book besides its religious content was actually a good story. Reed Arvin is a player in the Nashville music industry, particularly the Christian music industry. He can write a good story. The religious part was overshadowed by what one has to endure to make it in Nashville. Arvin obviously has a lot of insight and knows the industry inside and out. He presents it in the book as an absolute to anyone who wants to make it there. You have to succumb to the pressures of all the people who think they are going to gain from your talent. You become a puppet in their hands if you have a lot of talent. Forget who you are and become what they think will sell. That's the story of the young man with talent who travels to Nashville only to find out that his original premise is trashed to be replaced by the vision of those who are guiding him.