Midnight Champagne

by A. Manette Ansay

April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon have known each other for just three short months, so their Valentine's Day wedding at a chapel near the shores of Lake Michigan has both families in an uproar. As the festivities unfold (and the cash bar opens), everyone has an opinion and a lively prediction about April and Caleb's union, each the reflection of a different marital experience. Meanwhile, at the nearby Hideaway Lodge, a domestic quarrel ends in tragedy. As April and Caleb's life together begins, death parts another man and woman in angry violence—and as the two stories gradually intersect, their juxtaposition explores the tangled roots of vulnerability and desire. By the time the last polka has been danced and the bouquet tossed, Midnight Champagne has cast an extraordinary spell. From the novel's opening epigraph from Chekhov—"If you fear loneliness, then marriage is not for you"—to its final moments in the honeymoon suite, A. Manette Ansay weaves tenderness and fury, passion and wonder into a startling tapestry of love in all its paradox and power.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Book Club, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels, Relationships

225 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 1999

About the author

A. Manette Ansay grew up in Wisconsin among 67 cousins and over 200 second cousins. She is the author of six novels, including Good Things I Wish You (July, 2009), Vinegar Hill, an Oprah Book Club Selection, and Midnight Champagne, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as a short story collection, Read This and Tell Me What It Says, and a memoir, Limbo. Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pushcart Prize, the Nelson Algren Prize, and two Great Lakes Book Awards. She lives with her daughter in Florida, where she teaches in the MFA program at the University of Miami.

Reviews

[Judith Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really quirky book. From the first chapter, I was intrigued. The story takes place at a well-worn chapel and lodge near Lake Michigan on Valentine's Day, where April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon are to be married. Over the next several hours, you meet their zany families and some unwelcome guests, all of whom are unique and memorable in their own way. This is not your typical romantic tale of love and marriage. It's a complex story of human frailties and forgiveness. I loved it!

[Jkdaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ansay is a wonderful storyteller. She manipulates her story to expertly include so many characters and storylines. I was completely engaged by her unexpected twists.
I found myself pondering a particular quote by Oscar Wilde that she used and upon which she expounded: "Men marry because they are tired and women because they are curious. Both are disappointed." Ansay goes on to say, " He was right about the disappointment. You will be disappointed. Not just in each other but in yourselves. It's inevitable that you'll each fall short of your own expectations. But you will also exceed those expectations, again and again, and in ways you can't possibly imagine...You look back and realize that - in spite of the disappointments - even the best of your old expectations seem pale in the face of actual life." I find this sentiment to be both so true and also so hopeful.

[Karina Almeroth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a romance, or chick lit...the cover is deceptive, I think the cover could be better to depict the book's contents, cause it is quite a serious book.

Definately not a romance or chick lit! I really enjoyed it, and was surprised, happily, by its seriousness and literary qualities (I love good literary books! But ones that aren't too serious).

I love that it was set one day over a wedding...I love wedding settings! Weddings are curious things, and I love characters being let loose at a wedding and seeing what they get up to. This was essentially this book.

But it has much deeper themes and issues running through it. Domestic violence, and violence against women, being the main one. I was really surprised to see it featured so heavily in the book, but happy it was. I feel really strongly about this issue and believe society turns too much of a blind eye to it. There was no turning a blind eye to it in this book!

Most importantly the book is about relationships, and marriage. It was an often sorrowful look at marriages, in all varieties and at differing stages of life. The happy newlyweds, the unhappy, cheating ones married 30 years, the wife-beating, murdering ones! I cried a lot, at the truth of it all, but also that there is still hope. There is still love, and there is still marriages that work out there.

There's also a mini ghost storyline happening, which I loved, and the setting, at this glorious, sprawling lodge and wedding centre was so comforting (even with a ghost or two), that I just longed to stay in a place like that (but maybe not get married! I may be turned off marriage for life after this book)!

I love the contents page for some reason....I've just stared and stared at it for many hours! Can't tell you why...I just love reading the contents page! I think that page alone brings so many images to mind, before you've even read the book. Maybe I'm just jealous, and I really want to write my own book with those chapter headings, like its vital to the story! Who knows, I'm just a girl addicted to words and books.

Basically, I loved it, and I think weirdly it was a case of reading a book on a certain subject that I really needed to read at this exact stage of my life.

Books have a way of finding you.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this almost novella. The time-frame is a single evening where a family wedding is occuring during a mid-western blizzard. One I most enjoyed was Ansay's character portrayal. Athough there are a dozen or so characters Ansay is able to give a real sense of each of these people and we can imagine their lives clearly from what we are given.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This remains one of my most favorite books of all time. Not only did it give me a shock when I found out who the mysterious unknown person really was, but there is a passage that still remains new to me every time I think of it, on page 213. It's the wedding toast given by the grandmother of the bride. It's inspirational . . . and just perfect.

[Reene's Library · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Midnight champagne"
by A. Manette Ansay

Sadly I couldn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. There were too many characters and it just didn't do well for me.

⭐/5

@reene_library

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[Tiffany · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this book. Too many characters, no real direction... the book did nothing for me. After reading Blue Water I was really looking forward to reading another novel from the author, but this was just disappointing.

[Ginger Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

You are cordially invited to the wedding of April and Caleb at the Great Lakes Chapel and Hideaway Lodge in southern Wisconsin on Valentine's Day. Get ready to feast on Chicken a la King and do the Hokey Pokey and the Bunny Hop. But beware - everything that can go wrong at a wedding will go wrong - some things trivial and one tragic.

But in spite of the fire in a toilet of the ladies' room, a broken mirror, a lost bridal bouquet, a drunk father of the bride, the awful lederhosen the band members are wearing, a mistaken identity, bratty children, snooty in-laws, the misery of the newly divorced and the mysterious goings on in Room 33 ( the Western Suite: decorated with a wagon wheel and pictures of cowboys -right down the hall from the Night in Tunisia Suite, the Caribbean Holiday Suite and the Garden of Eden Suite), this is one wedding you don't want to miss. You will laugh and you will cry. Your head will ache from too many drinks and your feet will hurt from too much Bunny Hoppin'. But you will be more than a little bit wiser as the evening draws to a close and you lift your glass of champagne in a toast to April and Caleb at midnight.

[Guenevere · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always feel gypped if a book is less than 200 pages, which strikes me as a novella rather than a novel,so this slim 174-pager was disappointing just in terms of length. There is nothing particularly new here, and no real surprises in the plot. It's superbly hetero-normative (note sarcasm) and seems to rest firmly upon the idea that women don't gain happiness in marriage or child-rearing and therefore their most fitting revenge is to see other women get married and join their club of resentment. Every character is masterfully stereotypical, with the possible exception of the little sister, Margo, who shows momentary promise when she pitches a full scale fit during the wedding, but then drops mostly out of the story. Overall it was a good filler between much meatier, complex reads, but I only paid $.99 for it so I could afford to be a little generous.

[Kit · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had one word to describe this book, it would be mediocre. I didn't hate it but I didn't like it either. All the characters were unlikable and the story's climax really disappointed me. The only reason I can think why I kept reading was the way the characters' stories were intertwined with one another. Other than that, it was incredibly boring.

[AndreaH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Need to save the wedding toast an aunt gives in this book that looks at married love, from newlyweds to oldtimers and all permutations in between. Covers a lot of emotional ground for such a slip of a book.

[Cranky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never got that interested in the story, but I liked the author's use of language.

[Sofia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Honestly, the book was a bit disappointing. The story itself is very well written, but there really wasn't mush of a storyline, and it was hard for me to really follow the story.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very quirky book with multitudes of characters. I could barely keep track of who was who, but in the end, the book kept me reading because I wanted to find out what would happen. A young woman, April, is getting married in typical Wisconsin fashion, with polkas and bunny hops and a band called the In-Laws. She didn't want to have a wedding; she just wanted to elope with Caleb, who she's known only for three months, but her father Elmer insisted she have a proper wedding.

A snow storm traps the guests and plays with the power. The Great Lakes Chapel and the nearby Hideaway Lodge are from a bygone era; a number of deaths and intrigues have happened over its history. Those ghost stories play into the tale of this wedding and lead to some fantastical happenings. The kids at the wedding are prone to causing trouble. A couple staying in the lodge (unrelated to the wedding party), in room thirty-three (a room with a particularly racy history), are having serious marital problems. April's old boyfriend shows up; his parents had been invited and he just assumed he could show up under their invitation (surely April's family meant to invite him). It's high jinx all around. I enjoyed it!

[Libby Hamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Midnight Champagne, by A. Manette Ansay, follows the wedding ceremony of April Liesgang and Caleb Shannon. Throughout this story many problems arise, April's ex-boyfriend shows up, two of the kids trashed the dressing room and lit the bathroom on fire, and lastly there may have been a murder in the hotel. Although this is not my favorite book, my favorite aspect of it is the symbolism involved with the relationships. There are many pairs in the story that Ansay reviews. Each relationship symbolizes a different type of "love." One involves jealousy, one is true love, and another is purely abusive. Because this book is set in the late 90s-early 2000s, it is very relatable. While reading it, certain family conflicts reminded me of my own family get togethers. The main reason I rated this book so low is because it is quite boring. Not many things throughout the book could hold my attention that well. It did give me a keen insight on relationships but there was not an active moving plot. I would recommend this book for an easy read that you can relate to, but if you are looking for an intense and attention-grabbing book, then this is not for you.

[Kim R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should have written down all the characters as they were introduced, because I got confused and could not keep them straight. That way, I could have looked back to remember who was who. There were just so many people! The story line went from one person to another with some overlapping - whew!!

Quirky is the word to describe the whole scene (an afternoon to evening wedding - story takes place all in one day.)

There were some relatable segments to remind me of my own family, but overall, just bedlam, irritating characters, incorrect assumptions and a semi-happy ending.

Book was just OK. I got it free from our local library that was purging books. That should say something in itself!

[Monica Emerich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the title of this book bar you from snatching it up. I devoured it. The title and cover art indicate it to be Romance, and worse for me, contemporary romance. Good thing the back blurbs give it proper salute for what it is, a cleverly crafted story with psychological meatiness and a little magical realism thrown in for a tasty sauce. The book is sectioned into parts of a wedding, with laughable, lovable, worrisome and deplorable family and friends determined to celebrate what for some is a mournful experience, corralled together inside a tacky venue a la Las Vegas style by a vicious Midwestern blizzard raging outside.

[Ellen Morris Prewitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exquisitely written. The structure is almost perfectly executed (the present day story takes place within the night of a wedding, and the point of view flows seamlessly between family members, inn owner, etc.), and the sentences are beautifully crafted. It's not a topic I'd ordinarily be interested in—the reluctant family wedding—but it had me from the initial introduction of the terrible younger sister of the bride. Plus, I appreciated the magical realism thrown in. I highly recommend it.

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved every page of this book. I was enthralled with the lives of the bride and grooms families and all of their baggage that they brought with them to the old Chapel. It felt real. Like I was reading each characters diary or sharing the thoughts that lived in their head.
Ansay is a phenomenal story teller and everything about her writing was perfect. It was perfectly informal but not juvenile, funny, dark, sad, bright, and a story that I know will stay with me.

The wedding toast on page 213 really stuck with me. So awesome.

[Jeri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Great writing, interesting characters, wonderful setting! What kind of book was it? Ghost story? Love story? Mystery? Family drama? Who knows? But, it was quietly mesmerizing and I kept thinking about it when I wasn't reading. A. Manette Ansay is a gifted writer and this one, which takes place over the course of a wedding and reception during a harrowing, midwestern blizzard, is a unique tale.

[Didi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel takes place over the course of a wedding reception. The point of view drifts from character to character, exploring each character's perspective on love and marriage. There is very little in the way of plot. It took me a long time to finish, despite being quite short. I kept forgetting who different characters were.
That said, it was nice to read something set in the Mid-west. But mostly, I felt like I was reading a reasonably good MFA project.

[Sarah Obsesses over Books & Cookies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This feels like Anne Tyler but on a slant that is less Baltimore and cutesy characters and a little more rugged and hurt characters. Not sure that makes sense. If you've heard of Vinegar Hill, this is the same author. She has a gift of drawing up characters who are pretty deep, definitely flawed and sort of sad which equals my favorite kind of person (I like looking in mirrors, lol).

This was a quick read. I will be reading more from her.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish we could rate in .5 increments because this is truly a 3.5-star book. Reading it was really enjoyable with nice pacing and good writing.
I gave it a 3 instead of a 4 because it was forgettable. To get a 4, I want it to be a book that you immediately want to recommend to people, or a book that you keep thinking about long after you’ve put it down, and this was neither. A good story, but not great.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quirky story of a wedding that has the potential to go terribly awry, but ends up resolving itself into an (almost) happy ending, at least for the bride and groom. Lots of family drama, including a murder, exes behaving badly, teenaged vandals, and the bride's former fiancé showing up. A fast and entertaining read, a step above a cozy mystery.

[Jessica Sadler · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book just didn't grab me. It was an okay book with things I did enjoy (moving from character to character seamlessly within the one page, book taking place over one night, inclusion of complex themes) but the story feel short for me and I wasn't picking it up with eagerness to find out what happens next.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a wacky wedding weekend at an old resort that could have been in my hometown. That was comical. What I enjoyed most was the writing. A. Manette Ansay showed her skills by seamlessly weaving between the wedding participants point of views on the wedding, the resort, and their history with the bride. I was left marveling at Ansay's skill at doing this.

[evajean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly there wasn’t anything great about the book. It was hard to follow, a ton of characters, and none of them were stand out great characters. There just didn’t seem to be a lot to the book. The only reasons why it wasn’t 1 star is because I could relate to the setting and there were a few parte where the pace picked up.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

The cover of this book belies the quality of writing found inside. Characters come together for a single evening in a Midwestern lodge to witness a wedding. But it is the unraveling of each character's story in the midst of the sequence of events that makes this an engaging read.

[Katie Short · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look into mankind - what drives us, what annoys us, how we deal with people - all revolving around a small town during a snowstorm with a hotel full of wedding guests.
Some language and objectionable elements.

[Barbara Cryer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little gem of a book. The first chapter was a bit of a slog, but it picked up after that into a highly satisfying read. The midwest characters were written really well and I swear I've known some of them.