![]() If America "lost its innocence" in the wake of the Kennedy assassination in 1963, a decade later, in the wake of Nixon's Watergate scandal and the arrival of the sexual revolution in a buttoned up suburb, America's jaded and browbeaten heart and soul have completely frozen over. The tony suburban setting is crucial to where the characters are at the start of the book and where they end up after the events of the day (and night). But the setting is as much a character as the characters who people that setting - New Canaan, Connecticut, on Thanksgiving, 1973. They are interesting but they are too damaged and dysfunctional to relate to. The human characters are not exactly charismatic, not likable in any sense. My favorite character in The Ice Storm is 1973. ![]() ![]() That the narration is good helps, of course, but what I'm really referring to is the author's narrative voice, especially as he shifts his perspective among the four Hood family members and occasionally throws in his own personal musings. When I had a chance to get the audio edition, I thought it might be a better listen than a read, and that proved to be true. ![]() Just 30-40 pages in, I lost the book, and I did not rush out to replace it. I had originally tried reading the book in print but had difficulty getting into it. The narrative voice, paraphrasing what its characters are saying and thinking rather than quoting them directly via dialogue, makes it quite a good listen. ![]()
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