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The Ice Storm

Rick Moody

3.67 · Rating details · 5,021 ratings · 383 reviews

A black comedy, set in New England in 1973, by the author of Garden State. Amidst the worst storm for 30 years, families gather for a party, the highlight of which is a wife-swapping game. For two couples this supposedly harmless piece of liberal-minded entertainment spells permanent disaster.

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Paperback, 2000 Reprint, 280 pages

Published February 5th 1998 by Abacus (first published 1994)

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3.67 ·

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· 5,021 ratings · 383 reviews

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Oct 26, 2008 Fabian rated it it was ok · review of another edition

It tries hard to be clever but the language carries a heavy & pompous aroma. Instead of it being cold, sad and brilliant, it is too insider-y, too ordinary a tale and almost overly faulty. It was written... why? That countless times the author tries to tie in the family drama with the strangeness of the times (1973), & fails, pretty much destroys its entire purpose, whatever that may have been and was not.

Yes, there is a tragedy (and when it comes to these dramadies, when doesn't that ha ...more

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Jan 04, 2009 S. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2009

The American literati bristled last year when one of the Nobel Prize bigwigs said the country’s writers were too entangled with their own mass culture to get close to a new Nobel in Literature. I don’t think that’s entirely true, but after reading "The Ice Storm" I have to say I suspect the Swedish bigwig was reading Rick Moody.

Not that I didn’t like the book. But having been alive and fully conscious in the 1970’s, I knew the dozens of TV shows and pop songs Moody referenced. To be honest, the ...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Jonfaith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Fucking family. Feeble and forlorn and floundering and foolish and frustrating and functional and sad, sad. Fucking family. Fiend or foe.

Likely Ang Lee's film remains superior. The struggle is apparent here. One trying to rationalize one's upbringing is always a fool's errand. Moody appears to halt before the warmth. He's perhaps too keen to be clinical.

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May 20, 2013 Abraham rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, other

An exuberant and dark novel that makes you both laugh and hold your stomach at the detailed and nauseating portrayals of the shame of youth and family. No one is safe in this book, and no one is good. Everything is tinged with either a rot that is unredeemable or a rot that is still in its seedling state. The children will be as rotten as the parents, and the parents seem beyond hope. The culture of the town is hopeless and the only thing that makes it at all uplifting is the sense that this era ...more

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Feb 09, 2011 David Gillespie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

On the outset, Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm appears to be a Generation X era relic about what it was like to grow up in the 1970’s. Any serious reader has probably read at least one of these type of stories before; stories chock full of ironic kitsch and facile observations on how screwed up the Me generation were. At the beginning of the novel, Moody lives up to that description, as he sloshes the kitsch with a ladle, with lists of brand names, pop songs, and other period icons so that you can be On the outset, Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm appears to be a Generation X era relic about what it was like to grow up in the 1970’s. Any serious reader has probably read at least one of these type of stories before; stories chock full of ironic kitsch and facile observations on how screwed up the Me generation were. At the beginning of the novel, Moody lives up to that description, as he sloshes the kitsch with a ladle, with lists of brand names, pop songs, and other period icons so that you can be sure that he really remembers 1973. However, this is not a nostalgia trip. What starts as a dark comedy deepens into suburban tragedy. All of the characters are in various states of malaise, and Moody resists caricature. They are damaged human beings, full of flaws and deceptions.
The Hood family live in a WASP suburban enclave called New Canaan, which is beautiful on the surface, but is seething underneath with cultural upheaval. The Watergate scandal is on the television every night, and the sexual revolution is creeping into the suburbs. Patriarch Ben Hood is self-absorbed in his own depression, and having an affair with a neighbor. Wife and mother Elena Hood is equally self-absorbed, and stews in her own self-loathing. Their daughter, Wendy, throws herself into sexual experimentation and drugs to escape the stultifying atmosphere, and son Paul takes refuge reading comic books. Life goes on the same rut, but a storm is on the horizon, a beautiful but deadly ice storm that forces everyone together, and all of his or her deceptions trigger a familial meltdown.
Moody deftly orchestrates these deceptions, as the characters alternately ignore, circle, and confront each other. Adding to the orchestrations is the narration from four different perspectives, each of them a member of the two families affected by Ben’s affair, who are promoting their own opinion and views of the ensuing events that arise throughout the novel. Three of the Hoods run away from their malaise by going to bed with members of the family next door, then get caught and try to deny it, while accusing the others. Most of these encounters are darkly funny, but the eventual plot twists change the tone from humorous to dead serious. The storm is always in the horizon, but once it arrives to New Canaan, the emotional wounds the characters have hidden come boiling to the surface, and before the night is over, somebody’s child dies. The cultural references also take on a much heavier resonance as the mood darkens. One of the most poignant uses is when Wendy turns up A Charlie Brown Christmas on the television to drown out the noise of her parents arguing. The mix of pop culture and emotional violence brings home the general atmosphere of a society disillusioned by Nixon, and turned on by the sexual revolution.
By the end, Moody's tone has turned alternately mournful and stern. The adults are three dimensional, and all too human, but Moody does not let them off the hook for their bad behavior. The characters are adrift without a moral compass as the Watergate scandal drones on in the background. However, Moody still makes the characters sympathetic, precisely because they are all too human. He manages to frequently evoke both tones in his prose, as in the following: “ . . . you could pay Arthur Janov to teach you to scream . . . learn a prayer or a mantra . . . but that was the best you could probably do. You were stuck.” That sentence probably sums up Moody’s 70’s experience, and overall, The Ice Storm is a striking generational flipside to the works of Cheever and Updike.
...more

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Jan 27, 2016 Stephanie rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars.

The Ice Storm was, oftentimes, an incredibly difficult read. Not in terms of structure or writing-style--Moody's writing was often sharp-intake-of-breath-beautiful:

"The sheer, white drapes in the guest room were limp as the bangs of a sad schoolgirl" (5)

or

"Once his dreams had been songs. He'd been a balladeer of promise and opportunity" (6)

but in the affect it had on me, the reader. Many of the scenes in the book were discomfiting, disturbing, heavily focused on sex acts, and the wo 3.5 stars.

The Ice Storm was, oftentimes, an incredibly difficult read. Not in terms of structure or writing-style--Moody's writing was often sharp-intake-of-breath-beautiful:

"The sheer, white drapes in the guest room were limp as the bangs of a sad schoolgirl" (5)

or

"Once his dreams had been songs. He'd been a balladeer of promise and opportunity" (6)

but in the affect it had on me, the reader. Many of the scenes in the book were discomfiting, disturbing, heavily focused on sex acts, and the workings of the male genitalia (which, come to think of it, makes a great deal of sense by book's end, when the identity of the narrator is revealed). The characters in this book are fucked up and they, in their small way--and in the course of one Thanksgiving weekend--mirror the fucked up-ness of 1970s America...its political climate and the shortcomings of the promised suburban American Dream.

The narrator takes breaks in the story to interject rambling lists of 1970s goings-on and trends. At first, I thought this was mildly annoying, like "I GET IT, it's 1973, you don't have to tell me about the shag carpeting and the rainbow toe-socks and the bottle of Summer's Eve inconspicuously shelved in the bathroom". But then I got it--the narrator wasn't beating a 1970s kitsch horse over the head, but rather showing how the characters in The Ice Storm have surrounded themselves with (essentially meaningless) stuff. Stuff that doesn't provide an answer to any of life's big questions or fulfill deep and, as is often the case with these characters, unacknowledged (or, if acknowledged, disparaged) need.

The ice storm is the perfect ruse, the perfect metaphor. The storm (and with it the fate of these characters) moves towards an inevitable, terrible end. Like the ice-encased trees and power-lines, like the abandoned cars, these characters are stuck. And, as the narrator so artfully implies, they always will be:

"History's surveillance was subtle and enduring and its circular shape caught the Hoods, the Nixons, and everyone else. You could pay Arthur Janov to teach you to scream about history, or you could learn prayer, or a mantra, or you could write your life down and hope to make peace with it, write it down, or paint it, or turn it into improvisational theater, but that was the best you could probably do. You were stuck". 272-273 ...more

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Oct 25, 2016 Mattia Ravasi rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fi1v...

The Ice Storm is a tirade on how terrible your life can be when you are WASP and rich and priviledged. It's well written and flows like a wonder, but it is one of those books in which nothing really happens even when people die and everyone is a complete asshole, and if you are looking for one of those, by all means read Franzen's 21st century novels - they are, at least, quite dope - or John Updike's Rabbit novels before turning to this one. ...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Alex rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: smut, 2016

Let's play Literary Key Party!

Here's how it goes: everyone plays an author, and then you pick another author's keys and you have to write your story in their style!

For example, if I'm John Fowles and I end up with Jane Austen's keys, I might say

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a young lady to lock in his basement.

Here are some names to get you started:

Ladies*
Jane Austen
Flannery O'Connor
Dorothy Parker
Ayn Rand
Carolyn Kee ...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: author-north-american, novels, 20th-century, read-in-2016

I saw the Ang Lee adaptation of this book a few years back and so was curious about Moody's novel. While the movie was stylized and Twin Peak-ish, it was a tad boring. The novel, on the other hand, was a page turner.

Set during a single 24-hour period in New Canaan Connecticut, 1973, Moody gives us an accurate lay of the land with all the products, projects, and preoccupations of the beginning of Watergate and the end of Viet Nam. I'm the same age as two of the teens in the book, Wendy and Sandy, ...more

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Jan 08, 2008 Nathan rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I'm not sure what I think about this book.

On one hand, Moody has a spellbinding quality about his writing. His voice is quite unique, and from a purely linquistic and literary perspective I found the book quite appealing. Also, I'm always attracted to writers who write about real, unattractive, unwholesome, unheroic people, and I usually enjoy works that are trying to expose the dark underbelly of society.

On the other hand the story seems, I don't know, contrived maybe. I appreciate his commen ...more

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Feb 05, 2019 M. Sarki rated it really liked it · review of another edition

https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...

Marvel Comics never interested me. Nor did the funny pages of the newspaper. But Rick Moody obviously likes comic books and superheroes and uses them to populate an otherwise engaging book about self-realization, sexual experimentation, coming of age, and marital infidelity. Not to mention a host of other notable topics in music, film, and politics from the year 1974.

...Until recently he had believed that the elderly were born that way, unlucky. Now he kn https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...

Marvel Comics never interested me. Nor did the funny pages of the newspaper. But Rick Moody obviously likes comic books and superheroes and uses them to populate an otherwise engaging book about self-realization, sexual experimentation, coming of age, and marital infidelity. Not to mention a host of other notable topics in music, film, and politics from the year 1974.

...Until recently he had believed that the elderly were born that way, unlucky. Now he knew how effortless that transformation was…

The primary focus is on each individual member of the Hood family. Husband Ben, spouse Elena, daughter Wendy, and son Paul. The reader enters the mind of each of these characters and the text shifts back and forth among all four throughout the entire book. It works, but not without a bit of irritation with the writer Moody for using this G-d method.

...On the other hand, there was something compulsive about the way she got entangled, as though Wendy herself had picked the posture and activity that would most make her feel ashamed…

Criticisms of “exhaustive detailing”and “encyclopedic” additions to almost countless pages seemed to me to be both true and false as David Foster Wallace proved years later with his own infamous employ of the same tactics. I actually enjoyed most of Moody’s digressions and believe it added to the painful emotions all of the members were experiencing in real time. Moody proved to be a precursor to the infamous “endnotes” David Foster Wallace himself became famous for.

...She had admitted to herself for a moment that her husband’s infidelity was, in the end, his own business, however awful it made her feel…

The “key party” in the midst of one of the worst winter ice storms in Connecticut history was the central event the characters managed, in their own private affairs, to spin around endlessly. Ice, of course, is frozen water and there seemed to be no end to its erosive characteristics. Storms do eventually end and repairs are made. And some destruction cannot be avoided.
...more

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Jan 02, 2010 Dusty rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: carly-dusty-book-club, read-in-2014

Maybe this book is too long. Maybe the other reviewers are correct that Rick Moody's scrupulous attention to 70s pop culture overwhelms his ability to tell a good story. Maybe I know, and like, Ang Lee's movie adaptation too well. Whatever the case, my mind wandered an awful lot while I was trying to read The Ice Storm, a book I first admired but didn't like and then didn't admire or like all that much.

Three of my wandering thoughts:

1. The Ice Storm tells the story of a typical day in the life o Maybe this book is too long. Maybe the other reviewers are correct that Rick Moody's scrupulous attention to 70s pop culture overwhelms his ability to tell a good story. Maybe I know, and like, Ang Lee's movie adaptation too well. Whatever the case, my mind wandered an awful lot while I was trying to read The Ice Storm, a book I first admired but didn't like and then didn't admire or like all that much.

Three of my wandering thoughts:

1. The Ice Storm tells the story of a typical day in the life of Panem's capitol city. Recently, I read Catching Fire, which depicts scenes of the same kind of extravagance and immorality that drives the characters in this book. Only, there isn't a Katniss to critique and seek revenge. There are only clueless, self-destructive, privileged people in tasteless clothes.

2. I wasn't prepared for the sex. Seriously, there is a lot of it, it is graphic, and it is between adults only about half of the time. The book is supposed to satirize icy suburbanites, so I guess the fact that they all have terrible, embarrassing, violent sex (never with their own partners) is a reminder of the cultivated class's inability to form or enjoy human relationships. On one hand, I think Moody could have made this point without so many references to thirteen-year-old Wendy's vagina and pubic hair. On the other, I appreciated some of the vintage terminology.

3. Kevin Kline is a lot better-looking than Benjamin Hood is supposed to be. More broadly, I think the adult characters are warmer, more relatable and rounded, in the movie. Here is maybe the problem with all the pop cultural references and the pages and pages of dry Fantastic Four summary. The movie cuts a lot of that out, and Kline, Joan Allen, and Sigourney Weaver are better actors than Moody's characters deserve.

In the last chapter, the author shares a few revelations. One of these is that the books' characters are as bound to history and helpless in its wake as are the people at the "front" of history, like Nixon. This is fairly banal as last-act revelations go, but it lets us know that Moody has aspired to write a book in the vein of, say, Doctorow's Ragtime that interprets history by combining fictional and nonfictional characters. He doesn't exactly fail at this, but he is more interested in white U.S. American pop culture than what I would call "history", and, like I said, my mind wandered... ...more

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Oct 12, 2016 Jason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

This was a favorite when I first read it at around age 20. I responded to its cynical view of American suburban life and this dissolution of the nuclear family. I admired its wry take on consumerism and the soulless pop culture of its era, the early 1970s, and its rhetoric influenced a wannabe subversive undergrad pretentiousness that I didn't shake until well into adulthood. In a similar way, its unorthodox stylistic features and narrative structure informed my own half-assed attempts at being ...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Kali VanBaale rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What I love about this book is its unsentimental view of suburban turmoil and discontent--that phrase "all is not what it seems" I love to see played out in literature so much. In some ways, THE ICE STORM feels like it picks up where Richard Yates' classic and brilliant suburban novel REVOLUTIONARY ROAD left off--from the 50's to the early 70's--and in the span of that decade between the two books, adults haven't learned much. One immediate difference with Moody's story though, is that he offers ...more

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Nov 23, 2017 Rand rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I don't recall actually reading this but I know that I watched the movie and that I used to live with a copy of this book back when I was actually reading books like all teh time so I'm pretty sure I read it but cannot recall anything, in part because if I actually did read this book, I did not realize that I had seen the film adaptation until much much later, it being one of those sorts of movies one watched in secret

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Dec 27, 2008 Rachel rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

All in all, I gotta say I'm disappointed. That's why I'm giving this book such a mediocre review- something I rarely do for books. I *loved* this movie. I love how it dealt with these "slice of life" moments in the lives of these four family members, and how they coalesced around their indescretions with a neighbor family. Paul, the son who was least involved in this inter-familial deceit (he lived at boarding school and spent the majority of the book at a friend's apartment far away in New York All in all, I gotta say I'm disappointed. That's why I'm giving this book such a mediocre review- something I rarely do for books. I *loved* this movie. I love how it dealt with these "slice of life" moments in the lives of these four family members, and how they coalesced around their indescretions with a neighbor family. Paul, the son who was least involved in this inter-familial deceit (he lived at boarding school and spent the majority of the book at a friend's apartment far away in New York,) was the obvious choice for narrator. I like how they did it in the movie- Paul's fleeting but poigniant overtures to the plot progression, plus the crispness and unspokenness of the action. My favorite scene- the ending scene, where the family picks Paul up from the train station after all is said and done- is so wonderful for what it conveys by *lack* of dialogue and internal angst. It's just such a beautiful, compelling look into the life of this family without hitting you over the head with "what it all means" or "what's coming next."

The book, however, is chock full of all of this. Paragraphs upon paragraphs of dialogue- even the truncuated sentences were too rambly and unbelievable. Way too much stream-of-consciousness and breaking away from the plot to reminsce over the Conneticut landscape from the train or disjointed childhood memories thta I had to ask myself, continuously, what's important here? And why should I care? (Which is shocking enough in itself since, as a writer, I am usually far more interested in character development than plot!)

But the characters themselves were similarly hollow. The whole book kinda read as a rambly encyclopedia for 1970s culture, and the Hoods were mere outcroppings of popular trends. They barely had distinctive voices at all. Paul and Wendy, the brother and sister, had nearly identical sexual experiences (down to the specifics of what acts they performed on which gender.) Each of them came equipped with these trivia deviations- paragraphs thrown into their narratives as if Moody was writing a poorly-constructed essay on counterculture, whether it was about the Paul's heroes, the Fantastic Four, Wendy's favorite television programs, or Elena's psychology book finds.

There were occasional moments of insight within all of the hubris, plus my love for the movie characters that make me give the book props. I also am an advocate for exploring sexual themes in books- but they should be beliveable. People may be influenced by the culture of the day, absolutely, but ultimately, their choices should be their own, and not read like some sort of sterilized "example" of whatever theme the author is trying to prove. ...more

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Nov 14, 2013 R. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

A strange beast: it's Rabbit Angstrom fanfiction. but sets the pace for Chabon's and Lethem's usage of comic books (and their creators) as some sort of (misguided) universal cultural touchstone.

Was overly creeped out by the key party scene. Doubly so, since TCM Underground was on (low) in the background, featuring Hatchet for the Honeymoon ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatchet_... ) and a proto-Goblin score ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_(... ) ...a score that seemed (seems) so much mor ...more

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Sep 29, 2017 Will rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-fiction

Since when do parents leave their teenage children unsupervised at home so they can go out drunk driving in an ice storm? Why would someone host a neighborhood-wide swingers' party on a Thanksgiving weekend?—again—during an ice storm? None of this story makes sense! Moody pushes and pulls characters along bizarrely configured subplots, just to have them in the right place at the right time to converge into an overkill of an ending. The Ang Lee film, adapted from this, is better, though the wind ...more

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Mar 23, 2017 Israel Lawton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this book after developing a feverous obsession with Ang Lee's 1997 film adaptation, and was engulfed by this novel as quickly and completely as the film. Moody's prose is readable, personal, humorous and unrelenting, propelling you deeper and deeper in the lives and minds of two suburban families in 1973. The novel aches almost from the get go, eventually crescendoing into a poised but agonizing wail of pain. Those looking for a quick, tragic read will have that urge thoroughly satisfied ...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Michael Hughes added it · review of another edition

Moody is more interested in waxing poetic (sometimes "poetic") than letting his characters speak and think for themselves. Consequently, we don't care about them very much. They aren't allowed to be real in the reader's mind. Moody is always present as an intermediary. And his contempt - for these characters, for their suburban milieu - is exhausting stuff. There isn't much action in The Ice Storm but there is plenty of unseemly poring over shameful sex and the ruins of sad, failed lives. Abando ...more

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Jan 13, 2015 C. Thompson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Loved every word. Had no idea Moody was this good. Will be reading more of him. Very jealous of his talent.

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Dec 15, 2017 Mark Hiser rated it liked it · review of another edition

On a late November weekend in 1973, a snow and ice storm hit an affluent community in Connecticut. The storm, as well as the cultural changes taking place in America, make life difficult for people to navigate.

From the White House, Nixon lies to the people. The moral compass of the country swings wildly. People lose their innocence in the confusion and chaos as they hold secrets, betray others, and destroy relationships. The Ice Storm is a darkly comic story of the politics and sexual revolutio ...more

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Dec 16, 2018 Kelly rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I dunno. A+ for stylistic ambition, but yowza, the style felt overdone and the period detail felt forced. I kept finding myself skimming. Then I'd go back and read what I'd skipped, and realize I hadn't missed anything.

Someone else gave this an example of Moody's amazing prose style, but when I read it I was like, whaaat: "The sheer, white drapes in the guest room were limp as the bangs of a sad schoolgirl." (page 5)

This simile failed for me. Why does the schoolgirl need to be sad? Schoolgirls ...more

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Jul 25, 2017 Amy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The 1970s are now characterized as an era when idealism died. The dream of the hippies hadn't panned out, Nixon tried everyone's trust and patriotism, and relationships were more strained than ever. This book focuses on mainly on two neighboring families during the titular ice storm. Ben is having an affair with Janey; Ben's daughter Wendy is exploring her sexuality with both of Janey's sons; and then there is a "key party" to set things into chaos even further.

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Apr 03, 2019 judy-b. judy-b. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

When I first read The Ice Storm, I had no point of reference for the people and events it portrays. Not until I saw the movie, when I had a little better understanding of the world, did I feel the depth of the social commentary. The first time, these characters were vivid, because they are so pointedly depicted, but not real. Much like Madame Bovary exists in another dimension of time and context, so did these characters, because when I first read it I was too young and too working class.

The '7 When I first read The Ice Storm, I had no point of reference for the people and events it portrays. Not until I saw the movie, when I had a little better understanding of the world, did I feel the depth of the social commentary. The first time, these characters were vivid, because they are so pointedly depicted, but not real. Much like Madame Bovary exists in another dimension of time and context, so did these characters, because when I first read it I was too young and too working class.

The '70s disturbed me. I was in primary school, and I felt the tension of the sexual revolution without realizing it, through two extremes: one one end, my parents' disapproval of social liberalism—they were staunch Democrats but disapproved of pretty much the whole culture and society, excepting Walter Cronkite and Lawrence Welk—and on the other, the neighbors whose parents had a waterbed, a mirrored ceiling, and pictures from Playboy and Playgirl on the walls, which both intrigued and confused me. My parents' fear and resentment plus the TV news of war and terrorism and economic recession plus the soundtrack of that time, which for me is epitomized in The Doors, plus my family's unique dysfunction, made for a profound unsettlement within me that somehow came into clearer focus when I re-read this book.

When I was a kid, I thought that if my family had money, or if my parents weren't so authoritarian and restrictive, we would be happier. One of the lessons of this book is that no, we'd just have been unhappy in a different way. Blindly following someone else's mores—no matter what they are—is a path to ruin.

I have always loved Rick Moody's sentences, and there were places in the Ice Storm that I realize still resonate in my own crafting of lines. That was wild to see. I knew the Ring of Brightest Angels in Heaven had deeply affected me, because I read it at a time when it spoke to and for a darkness I felt within; I felt a kinship with the author, and when I read Demonology, I felt a hope for myself, that I might also make something bright of my shadows. It was a treat to revisit this novel and see a certain path I took through his work and how that, in some way, has guided me in mine. ...more

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Feb 01, 2011 John rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

With its pristine, white picket fence image and sometimes hellacious underbelly, the suburban lifestyle easily lends itself to ridicule.

Books (like Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Virgin Suicides”), films (i.e. “American Beauty”), and television shows (such as “Desperate Housewives” or “Weeds”) have all taken different approaches in dissecting and scrutinizing the inner workings of American middle-to-upper-class neighborhoods. These mediums have followed and even help set a common contention in the Uni
With its pristine, white picket fence image and sometimes hellacious underbelly, the suburban lifestyle easily lends itself to ridicule.

Books (like Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Virgin Suicides”), films (i.e. “American Beauty”), and television shows (such as “Desperate Housewives” or “Weeds”) have all taken different approaches in dissecting and scrutinizing the inner workings of American middle-to-upper-class neighborhoods. These mediums have followed and even help set a common contention in the United States that the suburbs are filled with secretive, deceitful, sexually repressed people who strive to appear that they are more put together than everyone else around them.

Rick Moody fully embraces this notion of suburbia’s scarred semblance in his exceptionally enlightening 1994 novel, “The Ice Storm,” which follows the swift downfall of two suburban families—primarily the Hoods and to a lesser degree, the Williamses—during a snow storm in a well-to-do Connecticut neighborhood in 1973.

With cleverly crafted bluntness, Moody wastes no time in knocking down the gates of the white picket fence mentality of the Hoods.

The book is narrated by Paul, an awkward, sexually frustrated young man on the cusp of adulthood who is away at school while his family is melting down, but his viewpoint is just one of four similar voices that Moody uses to tell this suburban tale. The other three narratives are focused on Ben Hood—Paul’s father, is also sexually frustrated and is an anxious, insecure man who cheats on his wife, Elena, with his neighbor, Janey Williams; Elena—who has more or less grown indifferent in her lackluster marriage with Ben; and Wendy Hood—Ben and Elena’s 14-year-old daughter, who is uncomfortable in suburbia and more importantly, uncomfortable being part of her family.

These characters are emotionally damaged from the get-go, as they are all presented overwhelmingly lonely in a culture where feelings are made to be suppressed and people are forced to put on smiles. Although each member of the family fits somewhat of an archetype for common tales on suburbia—Paul is a confused and unhappy father, Elena is a bored and disenchanted wife, Wendy plays the role of the rebellious daughter that doesn’t want to fit in—but Moody creates a painfully brutal yet sincere depiction of each tremendously flawed character.

However, there is nothing stereotypical about Moody’s work and especially his characters. Despite Ben and Paul being perverts, Moody is able to turn them into sympathetic figures. There is true sorrow witnessing the members of the Hood family drowning as they pretend to lead a normal life in a judgmental neighborhood.
Moody creates a deflating picture of the family through his vibrant imagery. His paragraphs might seem to run on with overly vivid detail, but it is the rich similes and metaphors that make “The Ice Storm” so touching and realistic. Moody carefully navigates his way through the story, frequently using foreshadowing to allude to impending doom for the Hoods and Williamses as a blizzard (metaphorical and literal) approaches.

The finest piece of writing in the book comes during the death of one of the story’s characters. It is descriptive and disturbing, yet it’s cleverly done as Moody evokes despair instead of disgust. It was a moment in the story that Moody admits, was hard to craft, but eventually propelled Moody into becoming a more complete writer.

Moody’s writing could be considered navel gazing, but this analysis of a flawed part of American society is every bit is as prevalent now as it was when he wrote the book in 1994, or during its setting in the 1970s. In some ways Moody is obvious in his writing and in others he is discrete. But Moody must be commended for the tone of his novel. His narration of the book is bittersweet as he blasts the unfortunate souls of suburbia for their pretentiousness, but he also shows pity on two families who were led down the wrong path by a standard that society set for them.

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Feb 19, 2017 S.W. Gordon rated it liked it · review of another edition

This third person omniscient narration with authorial intrusions rotates through four main POV's but in the end we discover the narrator is actually one of the POV characters. So I guess this make it a retroactive first person narration. Like Ulysses or Mrs. Dalloway, the entire story takes place in a single day. Other than a tragic death and a lot of sexual dalliances, not a lot happens in this book. I suppose the writer is trying to shock us with prepubescent sexuality, masturbation and adulte ...more

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Dec 23, 2011 Stephen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my-aborted-50-states-in-50-weeks-pr

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody is set in the real town of New Canaan in Fairfield County, Connecticut. A popular home for wealthy commuting New Yorkers since the advent of the railroad in 1868, its population more than doubled between 1950 and 1970 (from 8,001 to 17,451) as a result of its position at the centre of the modern architectural design movement from the late 1940s to the 1960s when a group of Havard students moved to the town and built around 80 to 100 modern homes. Other famous architec The Ice Storm by Rick Moody is set in the real town of New Canaan in Fairfield County, Connecticut. A popular home for wealthy commuting New Yorkers since the advent of the railroad in 1868, its population more than doubled between 1950 and 1970 (from 8,001 to 17,451) as a result of its position at the centre of the modern architectural design movement from the late 1940s to the 1960s when a group of Havard students moved to the town and built around 80 to 100 modern homes. Other famous architects including Frank Lloyd Wright also built houses in the town. The Ice Storm is set following that population boom in 1973 and focuses on two suburban middle-class families typical of the time and place, with lengthy descriptions of their New Canaan modern homes replete with cornerless plastic furniture, high fidelity sound systems and water-beds. Today the town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States (in 2008 New Canaan was ranked first in the nation with the highest median family income). The town has also served as a popular shooting location for New England-set films, with the adaptations of Revolutionary Road, Stepford Wives (2004) and The Ice Storm (which shows several of the modern homes of the period inside and out) all being at least partly shot in New Canaan.

The Ice Storm was adapted into a 1997 film by Ang Lee starring, amongst others, Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. I haven't seen the film in a long while and whilst I remember admiring it I can definitely say I enjoyed the book more. For one there is a lot more dark humour in the novel, especially in the way the comically inappropriate thoughts of the characters contrast with the seriousness of the situations they are in (I especially enjoyed the son Paul Hood's comparing his family’s problems with those of The Fantastic Four). This is obviously something that would have been very hard to transfer to film, not being able to enter the thoughts of the characters (though some voice-over narration is used), and as a result Ang Lee clearly decided to play up the more sombre, melodramatic and tragic elements of the plot. Also many of the more risqué sexual scenes in the book were excised - the black humour with which they are treated on the page being more in line with the films of Todd Solondz, and evidently would not have fitted with the tone of Ang Lee’s adaptation (one plot strand in the book involves a parent who brings his teenage son to a wife-swapping "key party" to be sexually initiated, with what could have been a borderline tasteless outcome were it not so wickedly funny). In all I’d say The Ice Storm is the book I’ve taken the most pleasure from on this challenge so far, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a slightly twisted sense of humour.

Text taken from my aborted project to read 50 books set in 50 states in 50 weeks. ...more

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Jun 08, 2018 Jeff Bottrell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I've had this one on my to-read shelf for over five years - the story of a single New England night in 1973 in which an ice storm descends and changes the lives of a group of mixed-up humans doing their best to make a go of it. Now just to be clear - it isn't all about the storm. The storm just comes along and weaves its way through the plot. Think, perhaps, of the rain of frogs in Magnolia, as a comparison. I didn't make a firm count, but I think we spend time with roughly six characters during ...more

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Sep 07, 2013 Andrew added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 90s-american-fiction, american-fiction

Some years ago, I watched the Ang Lee film of the same name (sorry to compare the book to the movie, I normally hate it when people do that, but it has a purpose, I promise), and was delighted by his use of the visual aesthetic of the 1970s-- shag carpets and plastic furniture and warm colors and middle-aged faces that reek of vice-- to guide his narrative of family collapse.

Rick Moody, unsurprisingly, uses similar techniques, constantly referencing movies and political events, or going into ext ...more

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About Rick Moody

Rick Moody

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Rick Moody (born Hiram Frederick Moody, III on October 18, 1961, New York City), is an American novelist and short story writer best known for The Ice Storm (1994), a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, and became a bestseller; it was later made into a feature film.

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“The past was so past it hurt.” — 12 likes

“Words are the oldest information storage and retrieval system ever devised. Words are probably older than the cave paintings in France, words have been here for tens of thousands of years longer than film, moving pictures, video, and digital video, and words will likely be here after those media too. When the electromagnetic pulse comes in the wake of the nuclear blast? Those computers and digital video cameras and videotape recorders that are not melted outright will be plastic and metal husks used to prop open doors. Not so with the utterances of tongues. Words will remain, and the highly complicated and idiosyncratic accounts assembled from them will provide us with the dark news about the blast. The written word will remain, scribbled on collapsed highway overpasses, as a testament to love and rage, as evidence of the wanderers in the ruin.” — 11 likes

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