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Hill Family #1
The Hills at Home: A Novel
In this rich and wonderfully comic family story we meet the Hills, an irrepressible New England clan. First and foremost is the maiden aunt and matriarch, Lily, whose great old manse is invaded, in the summer of 1989, as the members of her family descend upon her one by one. From Lily’s old-salt brother Harvey, with his triptych of photographs of his three late wives, to their niece Ginger, a hopelessly scattered romantic and would-be novelist, to Ginger’s brother Alden, a banker laid off from Wall Street, with his rowdy brood of four, they all claim to have come “just for a visit.” But the weeks go by and no one shows any sign of leaving—if anything, the Hill family seems like it might actually be growing.
In a masterful orchestration of the many voices contending for dominance in the Hill household, Nancy Clark charts the family dynamics against the larger backdrop of the recession during the first Bush administration and the fall of the Berlin Wall—a changing world that encroaches on the Hills' Yankee existence in surprising ways as the plot develops. But it is with the arrival of Andy—a grad student with a tenous connection to the family, who wants to research the Hills for his Ph.D. on the vanishing breed of New England WASPs—that their lives are turned upside down. Armed with 3 x 5 cards and consanguinity calculations, Andy soon becomes as much a participant as an observer in the shenanigans, misunderstandings, and Shakespearean romantic couplings that the novel has in store. Directing this overflowing cast with wry wisdom and a rollicking prose style, Nancy Clark delights us with her exploration of the forces that strain and sustain a family, and the ties that bind.
In a masterful orchestration of the many voices contending for dominance in the Hill household, Nancy Clark charts the family dynamics against the larger backdrop of the recession during the first Bush administration and the fall of the Berlin Wall—a changing world that encroaches on the Hills' Yankee existence in surprising ways as the plot develops. But it is with the arrival of Andy—a grad student with a tenous connection to the family, who wants to research the Hills for his Ph.D. on the vanishing breed of New England WASPs—that their lives are turned upside down. Armed with 3 x 5 cards and consanguinity calculations, Andy soon becomes as much a participant as an observer in the shenanigans, misunderstandings, and Shakespearean romantic couplings that the novel has in store. Directing this overflowing cast with wry wisdom and a rollicking prose style, Nancy Clark delights us with her exploration of the forces that strain and sustain a family, and the ties that bind.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
November 14, 2013
Finally, the Books section has a scoop: Jane Austen is alive. What's more shocking, the grandmother of social satire has moved in with Jonathan Franzen, and the two of them have produced a love child called The Hills at Home.
How else to explain this allegedly debut novel from an unknown New Hampshire writer? Nancy Clark - if she really exists - has just published what is surely the wittiest family portrait in years.
There is an immense audience waiting for a book like this. It includes all those people made to feel prudish by their reluctance to endure the vulgarities of Hollywood, the inanity of sitcoms, or the gritty assault of modern literature; people of real taste who are nonetheless gently steered toward sweet, sanitized romances, as though they're elderly customers arriving with Green Stamps to purchase products no longer made. In other words, all those people still clinging, despite the persistent lack of satisfaction, to their literary pride and prejudice.
For the members of the Hill family, no matter where they've wandered to, home is in the town of Towne, population 1,900, outside Boston. "Lily's family," the narrator explains, "had all come for visits the summer past and none of them had gone away again."
A retired schoolteacher living alone in a sprawling, run-down estate, Lily Hill has no desire to entertain her sundry relatives for more than a few hours, particularly relatives who are so hard on her windows. "They gazed through them excessively," she thinks with annoyance. But everyone in the family had been raised to regard "the old house in Towne" as their home, and Lily would no more push them out than she would discard a used Ziploc bag. Some things - in fact, many things - do not change. This is, after all, a family that feels specially reassured when their minister reads from Psalms: "The hills stand above Jerusalem.”
And so they intrude deeper and deeper on Lily's hospitality and each other's nerves, all the while imagining that they've come to help her out with the care of a house she can no longer manage.
They resist one another in subtle ways. When Lily stops providing "individual bars of specific and premium bath soaps," they forge her handwriting on the grocery lists. Clark has a sharp eye for the little consumer preferences they use to act out deeper conflicts: "Aunt Lily always bought Ajax brand because, she said, she had liked him in the Iliad.”
It's a cold war, indeed, since Lily won't turn on the furnace. "Haven't you a pair of house gloves?" she asks her chilly relatives, while reading a volume of Francis Parkman by a 40-watt bulb.
There is no plot, per se, in these 500 pages, but rather a series of relentlessly witty observations about an extended family wholly devoted to one another, despite their annoying quirks and passive aggression. The details and background of this blithely self-centered family, their private hurts and silly dreams, and even their filial connections come out very slowly, like Aunt Lily's precious heating oil. Indeed, the only real action comes so late that readers deaf to this novel's considerable charm will have wandered away long before those scenes arrive.
Harvey, Lily's brother, is a thrice-widowed old crank, running through the romantic possibilities at a nearby retirement village. His grandson arrives to pursue a career as a standup comic, but no one in the family finds him particularly funny. Lily's newly unemployed nephew and his wife arrive with four shockingly spoiled children to start a business selling "boutique wood," culled from her land. Her libidinous niece is seeking refuge from a failed marriage and planning to write a book of wisdom that will earn her gobs of money so she can shop more.
From an episode of Nova, Lily learns that the universe is expanding. "Lately, however, this had not been Lily's experience."
One of the many surprising visitors who joins the family is Andy Happening, a graduate student in sociology, who comes to write his thesis on the Hills. "It is very seldom that anyone has ventured from the Groves of Academe into the surrounding suburbs," he explains in his typically pompous voice. "I shall provide a map. This could well prove to be as important as Margaret Mead's field work in Samoa."
He begins by weighing their groceries. In his first interview, he says to Lily, "The Eskimos have over 300 words in their vocabulary to describe snow, Miss Hill. Tell me, how many words do you have for vase?”
But beneath all the dry comedy lies the author's tenderness for these characters and her sincere appreciation for their connection to each other. In a culture constantly conspiring to atomize families, the Hills' chronic togetherness is strangely enviable. Annoying as they can be, relatives, their unfortunate spouses, and their ghastly children are the Hills' universe, and they wouldn't have it any other way. Clark understands so well that family is both the cause and cure of so much loneliness and frustration.
The Hills' solidarity and Clark's indefatigable wit are antidotes for a world hopelessly separated and dangerously serious. She's reportedly at work on a second volume. I'm not leaving till it arrives.
How else to explain this allegedly debut novel from an unknown New Hampshire writer? Nancy Clark - if she really exists - has just published what is surely the wittiest family portrait in years.
There is an immense audience waiting for a book like this. It includes all those people made to feel prudish by their reluctance to endure the vulgarities of Hollywood, the inanity of sitcoms, or the gritty assault of modern literature; people of real taste who are nonetheless gently steered toward sweet, sanitized romances, as though they're elderly customers arriving with Green Stamps to purchase products no longer made. In other words, all those people still clinging, despite the persistent lack of satisfaction, to their literary pride and prejudice.
For the members of the Hill family, no matter where they've wandered to, home is in the town of Towne, population 1,900, outside Boston. "Lily's family," the narrator explains, "had all come for visits the summer past and none of them had gone away again."
A retired schoolteacher living alone in a sprawling, run-down estate, Lily Hill has no desire to entertain her sundry relatives for more than a few hours, particularly relatives who are so hard on her windows. "They gazed through them excessively," she thinks with annoyance. But everyone in the family had been raised to regard "the old house in Towne" as their home, and Lily would no more push them out than she would discard a used Ziploc bag. Some things - in fact, many things - do not change. This is, after all, a family that feels specially reassured when their minister reads from Psalms: "The hills stand above Jerusalem.”
And so they intrude deeper and deeper on Lily's hospitality and each other's nerves, all the while imagining that they've come to help her out with the care of a house she can no longer manage.
They resist one another in subtle ways. When Lily stops providing "individual bars of specific and premium bath soaps," they forge her handwriting on the grocery lists. Clark has a sharp eye for the little consumer preferences they use to act out deeper conflicts: "Aunt Lily always bought Ajax brand because, she said, she had liked him in the Iliad.”
It's a cold war, indeed, since Lily won't turn on the furnace. "Haven't you a pair of house gloves?" she asks her chilly relatives, while reading a volume of Francis Parkman by a 40-watt bulb.
There is no plot, per se, in these 500 pages, but rather a series of relentlessly witty observations about an extended family wholly devoted to one another, despite their annoying quirks and passive aggression. The details and background of this blithely self-centered family, their private hurts and silly dreams, and even their filial connections come out very slowly, like Aunt Lily's precious heating oil. Indeed, the only real action comes so late that readers deaf to this novel's considerable charm will have wandered away long before those scenes arrive.
Harvey, Lily's brother, is a thrice-widowed old crank, running through the romantic possibilities at a nearby retirement village. His grandson arrives to pursue a career as a standup comic, but no one in the family finds him particularly funny. Lily's newly unemployed nephew and his wife arrive with four shockingly spoiled children to start a business selling "boutique wood," culled from her land. Her libidinous niece is seeking refuge from a failed marriage and planning to write a book of wisdom that will earn her gobs of money so she can shop more.
From an episode of Nova, Lily learns that the universe is expanding. "Lately, however, this had not been Lily's experience."
One of the many surprising visitors who joins the family is Andy Happening, a graduate student in sociology, who comes to write his thesis on the Hills. "It is very seldom that anyone has ventured from the Groves of Academe into the surrounding suburbs," he explains in his typically pompous voice. "I shall provide a map. This could well prove to be as important as Margaret Mead's field work in Samoa."
He begins by weighing their groceries. In his first interview, he says to Lily, "The Eskimos have over 300 words in their vocabulary to describe snow, Miss Hill. Tell me, how many words do you have for vase?”
But beneath all the dry comedy lies the author's tenderness for these characters and her sincere appreciation for their connection to each other. In a culture constantly conspiring to atomize families, the Hills' chronic togetherness is strangely enviable. Annoying as they can be, relatives, their unfortunate spouses, and their ghastly children are the Hills' universe, and they wouldn't have it any other way. Clark understands so well that family is both the cause and cure of so much loneliness and frustration.
The Hills' solidarity and Clark's indefatigable wit are antidotes for a world hopelessly separated and dangerously serious. She's reportedly at work on a second volume. I'm not leaving till it arrives.
January 9, 2019
Loved this book. So clever and so funny. And now that it's over -- all 481 pages of it -- I'm missing the characters.
Very cleverly written. Very Jane Austen. Wonderful satiric eye and social commentary.
I had a little trouble keeping Becky and Betsy straight in my mind, which led to a couple very funny misunderstandings on my part. And I wasn't sure exactly who some of the minor characters were at the end.
Nevertheless, I am delighted to know that this is the first book in a trilogy! Can't wait to get my hand on the next two.
Very cleverly written. Very Jane Austen. Wonderful satiric eye and social commentary.
I had a little trouble keeping Becky and Betsy straight in my mind, which led to a couple very funny misunderstandings on my part. And I wasn't sure exactly who some of the minor characters were at the end.
Nevertheless, I am delighted to know that this is the first book in a trilogy! Can't wait to get my hand on the next two.
April 19, 2018
I read the first one as a kindle bargain and then immediately went out and bought the next two. There's a reference in the last one to Angela Thirkell, and if you know Thirkell you'll have a sense of what these books are like. Overlapping characters in a distinctive setting, all of them--the characters and the setting--charming.
June 24, 2020
So many words, so little said. When I have read a third of a novel and an interesting character or even the hint of plot hasn't appeared, it's time to step away from the book.
May 17, 2011
You might need a cheat sheet to keep all the family members straight here, but I loved all the characters and the town of Towne. There's probably as much mental action as physical action going on, so the characters have it over the plot. Really, how would anyone handle having 12 family members come and stay for a whole year? Looking forward to reading A Way from Home: A Novel to follow the Hill family.
June 11, 2015
wonderfully dense prose. i felt like i was right there with each member of the family as they spent a year living with "aunt lily" in her antiques stuffed, rambling old house. some reviews complained that "nothing happened" which isn't really true! Plenty of stuff happened, general (more or less) living day-to-day stuff happened, just nothing monumental happened! it's more about an extended family and each members existential "crisis" of the moment. i loved it and will seek out the author's other work, she's wonderfully talented.
January 24, 2018
I really tried to like this book. The writing style didn't work for me. I kept thinking "it will get better."
However, it didn't. I tried skipping paragraphs, then pages, and finally whole chapters. I'm sure someone out there likes this style of writing, it just isn't me. No offense.
I found the author too descriptive. Almost as if they had a book of descriptions to refer to if they needed to fill a page, and it was used, constantly.
I finally skipped to the last chapter and ended the story, skimming over sentences, paragraphs, pages and then skipping the whole chapter.
However, it didn't. I tried skipping paragraphs, then pages, and finally whole chapters. I'm sure someone out there likes this style of writing, it just isn't me. No offense.
I found the author too descriptive. Almost as if they had a book of descriptions to refer to if they needed to fill a page, and it was used, constantly.
I finally skipped to the last chapter and ended the story, skimming over sentences, paragraphs, pages and then skipping the whole chapter.
September 11, 2008
This book was a beautiful story about a family going through tough times and the strain that causes in familial relationships. "The Hills at Home" brilliantly portrays a WASP family's ability to hunker down and whether the storm. This book is described as similar to a Jane Austen novel. I don't think this description is accurate. This book is a window into WASP society, but it in no way resembles the grace and wit of Jane Austen's portrayal of the society in which she lived.
December 7, 2015
I'm late to the party on this one -- published in 2003 but I just found it randomly at the library. It's billed as a mix of Jane Austen and Jonathan Franzen, which is apt enough. A good long light read -- terrific travel book. Big cast of characters, funny, nice wry tone and style. Starts a bit slow but give it a chance. All the threads eventually come together, and that's always a pleasure. I enjoyed it more than three stars might suggest.
June 20, 2019
Overwritten, hundreds of pages too long, so boring, with many characters and hardly any plot, a few mildly funny moments and a few interesting relationships, and the local setting worked well...the house as its own character was perhaps the most memorable.
July 21, 2008
I am on a New England reading spree this summer. I liked this book about a crazy family that descends on their poor old maiden Aunt Lily at her fabulous MA homestead. It's very funny.
March 29, 2018
This was a long, leisurely, delicious read. Set in 1989, with a familiarly large family, in a familiarly old house... I quite enjoyed it.
July 26, 2018
I wanted to give up many times but plowed through & finished. There were moments but ...
October 17, 2024
I rated this five stars because I enjoyed this book IMMENSELY.
It doesn't deserve five stars because it's a "good book" in the sense that it's fantastic literature that checks all the boxes of great fiction. In fact, it doesn't check most of the boxes. It doesn't really have that much of .... well, a storyline.
However, I have never enjoyed reading words so much in my life. Every sentence is a joy. Nancy Clark has created characters that I see just so clearly in my mind's eye. It almost reminds me a little bit of Beverly Cleary's writing.... everyday mundane life that is just so interesting because it's so relatable and realistic.
I would 100% recommend if one of your favorite parts of reading is description of characters (or if you are a writer wanting to improve the way you describe your characters).
But I also totally understand why some people have rated this poorly. However, I still think this is worth your time!
It doesn't deserve five stars because it's a "good book" in the sense that it's fantastic literature that checks all the boxes of great fiction. In fact, it doesn't check most of the boxes. It doesn't really have that much of .... well, a storyline.
However, I have never enjoyed reading words so much in my life. Every sentence is a joy. Nancy Clark has created characters that I see just so clearly in my mind's eye. It almost reminds me a little bit of Beverly Cleary's writing.... everyday mundane life that is just so interesting because it's so relatable and realistic.
I would 100% recommend if one of your favorite parts of reading is description of characters (or if you are a writer wanting to improve the way you describe your characters).
But I also totally understand why some people have rated this poorly. However, I still think this is worth your time!
July 3, 2020
Meh!!!!!
I started reading this book at the beginning of COVID-19 virus. I struggled with this book, which I didn't think had a plot and was going nowhere. There are a lot of characters, and I kept a list in order to identify the character with his or her relationship to Lily Hill, the owner of the house. It wasn't until page 390 that the story became interesting, providing some drama (my edition of this book was 481 pages). The author's use of run on sentences was distracting, I often wondered if she took any college courses in creative writing. My high school English teachers would be appalled.
Can’t recommend this book. There are many, many more good fiction writers that I would recommend before I would recommend this book to anyone.
I wonder if the author has considered a sequel.
I started reading this book at the beginning of COVID-19 virus. I struggled with this book, which I didn't think had a plot and was going nowhere. There are a lot of characters, and I kept a list in order to identify the character with his or her relationship to Lily Hill, the owner of the house. It wasn't until page 390 that the story became interesting, providing some drama (my edition of this book was 481 pages). The author's use of run on sentences was distracting, I often wondered if she took any college courses in creative writing. My high school English teachers would be appalled.
Can’t recommend this book. There are many, many more good fiction writers that I would recommend before I would recommend this book to anyone.
I wonder if the author has considered a sequel.
June 3, 2021
Lush prose can go a long way to set up a novel. Too much lush prose weights it down and makes me think someone should quit abusing their thesaurus. My eyes glazed over at the overblown descriptions of every single thing in the novel. A table wasn't just a table, it was a flat-topped wonder of nature, burnished the rich shade of autumn leaves, polished to a mirror gleam that reflected the curious face above it. (The prose was even worse than that, I just dialed that back for clarity's sake.)
And there's also a ton of characters in this. All of them quirky, all of them loaded with problems. Again, a few quirky characters can make a book interesting. Too many of them bloat it up and make the plot too meandering.
And there's also a ton of characters in this. All of them quirky, all of them loaded with problems. Again, a few quirky characters can make a book interesting. Too many of them bloat it up and make the plot too meandering.
February 11, 2024
If you want to meet some great characters whose lives you just wish you could walk into, you owe it to yourself to read the Hill Family trilogy by Nancy Clark. A lot of people have compared her to Jane Austen, but I found myself thinking of Anne Tyler, if she were from New England instead of Baltimore. Some people complain about the density and slow pace of events, but when she gets so deep into the minds and motivations of her people, it's irresistible. The third novel, July and August, is especially adept at the little girls; their motivation and logic and humor are so convincing, it's almost like being little again. Sharply observed, poignant, and moving without sentimentality, these novels are worth savoring more than once.
January 30, 2018
Lily is the best character
A house full of close, distant, antagonistic, and frollicing relatives descend on Lily, the family's oldest living matriarch in the little town called Towne, Massachusetts. Lily struggles to remain impassive, relaxed and not interfering with the wild actions and additional visitors who make themselves at home. But she yearns for her past seclusion and quiet reflections. A more mixed up family tale would be hard to find.
A house full of close, distant, antagonistic, and frollicing relatives descend on Lily, the family's oldest living matriarch in the little town called Towne, Massachusetts. Lily struggles to remain impassive, relaxed and not interfering with the wild actions and additional visitors who make themselves at home. But she yearns for her past seclusion and quiet reflections. A more mixed up family tale would be hard to find.
July 2, 2018
This book brought me back to a time in my childhood when a lot of time was spent at my grandparents home, and my 6 aunts and uncles were coming home to get on their feet. Very nostalgic, and one of my favorites.
September 6, 2024
First novel by this author and it was surprisingly good. At the start, it felt maybe a little too earnest, but it settled in to a humorous and poignant depiction of several family members’ lives and foibles. I’m mildly interested to read the two sequels if I can find them.
February 1, 2018
A wordy, descriptive style of writing, not a huge amount of action but a good book about the different personalities and relationships that comprise a family.
March 2, 2019
A very long and over-written book - and I absolutely loved it. The last 10 pages contained some of the wisest and funniest sentences I’ve read. Sorry that it had to end.
December 28, 2020
Can't wait to read the sequel!
December 4, 2021
I really enjoyed this book but know going in this is entirely about characters, little to no plot, so if that's not your thing...I thought it was delightful.
January 30, 2024
Not my style of writing. Too many run on sentences. There was one that ran three quarters of a page and a few lines onto the next page. That’s about where you lost me. DNF
August 4, 2024
2016.
March 14, 2018
Best book I’ve read which had no plot. I became quite immersed in the characters & find myself thinking of the story days later. Thumbs up!
August 18, 2020
Perfect pandemic reading. Admittedly it's not so deep as it is broad, and it takes place in a very specific sphere of white Yankees fallen on hardish times - but if you want to spend many days in another world, in which people are amusingly rife with human failings, none of which include voter suppression or refusing to wear a mask during a global contagion, this is a fun way to do it. Witty, sly humor and a flawless narrative voice.
March 13, 2014
"All his life, or at least all his life that he could remember since discovering his hands and feet and, spontaneously, Newton's Third Law, he had been told not to damage Mr. Baskett's paint and not to swing from his lintel posts, whatever they were. If Glover had known what they were he would have bounced off them like a tetherball. His parents seemed to think Mr. Baskett was a god, watching over every speck of paint that fell, instead of a fat old guy who had lucked into a sweet rent-control deal and then struck a shady pact with his parents and it was people like them, like his parents and Mr. Baskett, Glover thought virtuously, who caused homelessness in America."
This is just a passage off a randomly chosen page. That's how funny this author is, all the time.
I enjoyed this quite a lot. Clark is very, very clever and writes in lovely, long, deliciously precise sentences. The plot is meandering, and there are too many characters, but the prose style is just sparklingly sharp. I was completely shocked to see that this is a first novel.
BTW, the book jackets (both of them) are unfortunate. This is not chicklit or a heartwarming family story lalala. In fact, one of the central characters is incredibly unlikeable. In fact, *most* of the characters are not all that likeable.
Edited to add: I felt the ending was a bit pat and overly chipper. Too bad. I would have liked to see the book's dark themes brought out a little more strongly. Overall, the plot detracted from the author's enormous talents as a prose stylist.
This is just a passage off a randomly chosen page. That's how funny this author is, all the time.
I enjoyed this quite a lot. Clark is very, very clever and writes in lovely, long, deliciously precise sentences. The plot is meandering, and there are too many characters, but the prose style is just sparklingly sharp. I was completely shocked to see that this is a first novel.
BTW, the book jackets (both of them) are unfortunate. This is not chicklit or a heartwarming family story lalala. In fact, one of the central characters is incredibly unlikeable. In fact, *most* of the characters are not all that likeable.
Edited to add: I felt the ending was a bit pat and overly chipper. Too bad. I would have liked to see the book's dark themes brought out a little more strongly. Overall, the plot detracted from the author's enormous talents as a prose stylist.
January 6, 2010
The first visitor to arrive at Lily Hill’s home in an old New England town was her brother, Harvey. Next came their niece Ginger, separated from her husband, along with her daughter Betsy. Soon came Ginger’s brother Alden and his family – Alden had lost his job. Next there was Harvey’s grandson and his girlfriend, and it went on like that all through the summer and in to the fall. All of them seemed to settle in for an indefinite time. One of the last “guests” to come was Andy, a sociology student whose Uncle George had some thin connection to Alden’s wife. Andy was writing his master’s thesis on the sociology of an old New England family, and wanted to use the Hills as an example. The story doesn’t have much plot; the attitudes and interactions of the various guests make up the story. There is a good amount of gentle teasing about New England traditions and how they seem to hang on and on. The book is almost 500 pages long, a good 150 too many, in my estimation. One of the reviews on Amazon.com said to stick with it because all the loose ends are tied up in the end, and they were, but I’m not quite sure it was worth it. Clark has written a sequel, but the plot summary on Amazon made me decide not to pursue it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews