Rating: 
Summary: An incredibly fine novel from a welcome new voice
Review: THE YEAR OF ICE by Brian Malloy has been recommended by more good authors than any book I've ever considered reading. And the reason for all these referrals is that this book is JUST THAT GOOD! A year in the life of a highschool senior in Minnesota embraces more universal truths and ordinary circumstances than a vast Joycean tome. Brian Malloy, in his first full-fledged novel, has a gift for storytelling that is uniquely his own. He lives inside his main character (Kevin) and manages to make all the dialogue parenthetically altered by what Kevin is thinking as he speaks the more acceptable words that form his reactions to the mad world in which he finds himself. Kevin is closeted gay, thinking that he is only one of three other gays in the world (two being unacceptable role models!) and his interactions with his classmates, neighbors, grocery store fellow workers, and family are often resolved by his imagination that he ends each day in the lovenest of his own creation with the one guy in school who embodies his private crush. Malloy has indelibly created a family that includes a mother dead from accident/suicide, a father who has a history of sleeping around, an entourage of widows who prey on Kevin's father, an aunt who is Catholic incarnate, and friends who measure the world in booze, drugs, and getting laid, and more. While there are a lot of potentially tragic moments in this year of 1978, bracketed as it is in the ice of Minnesota, Malloy manages to find the humor even in the darkest corners. He has created a character about whom we not only care deeply, but one from whom we learn how to view the times of the world in 1978, and end up loving this idiosyncratic lad.This is, simply stated, brilliant writing. THE YEAR OF ICE is simultaneously a raucous and hilarious romp, a fresh take on coming of age, and book about tenderness that too often lies frozen under the surface of a cold world. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to every reader.
Rating:
Summary: Not your typical gay teen coming of age book.
Review: I really enjoyed this book. It is not the typical gay teen coming of age book, but is a nice change from the normal. It was a nice to read about a young gay character who's life isn't only about sex. This book truly captures the heart of (Kevin) the books main character. A must read for older teens to adults.
Rating:
Summary: What a story!
Review: Okay, so I don't actually own this book - I checked it out from the library (hardcovers are expensive, you know). What a fun and compelling novel! The author avoids all the cliches of gay lit -- Kevin doesn't bore us with existential angst over his sexual orientation, no boyfriend appears out of nowhere to rescue him (sorry if that gave too much away), he is not a tragic loner. He's a very funny kid, and this a fresh and original representation of young man who is different, understands that his difference could make him a target, and deals as best he can. But more to the point, it's about everything that happens at once in life: family, school, relationships, money. There is not a tired thread in this book but a rich and complex story about real life. This is a blue-collar Holden Caufield with bad grades for the rest of us.
Rating:
Summary: A Sweet First Novel
Review: Set in 1978 in cold Minnesota, THE YEAR OF ICE is a "sweet," in the best sense of the word, first novel. The narrator, Kevin Doyle, is dealing with the recent death of his mother who may have committed suicide because of the affair his father was having and at the same time is trying to hide his sexual feelings toward other boys-- all that in addition to the common problems of being seventeen. Altogether believable and lovable, he thinks and talks just like an adolescent does and is certainly an empathetic character. There is an innocence about Kevin and his friends that we will not see again. It is a time before AIDS and hard drugs and metal detectors in schools where the drug of choice for these students is beer. There is a beautiful passage early in this novel when Kevin's English teacher, referring to Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening," asks him why he would stop in a woods to watch the woods fills up with snow. Kevin responds: "Without thinking I say, 'To remember my mom. She loved how the snow covered up all the garbage and dirt. She's sit for hours on the porch watching the snow fall. She grew up in Ireland and the snow doesn't last long there. She always said the snow was like a million fairy lights when the streetlamps caught the flakes just right.'" This is a perfect, sensible answer to the pedantic question. One could do worse than have a son or brother so perceptive.
Rating:
Summary: FUNNY ENGAGING
Review: This is an edgy book not for the faint of heart. It's kind of crude and lewd, which I personally like-----but those who love a book like "Blessings" should pass this up. Anyway...I was sorry it ended and look forward to more work from Brian Malloy. Loved the Irish slant and range of human emotions he explored. I laughed and then foisted this book on my husband.
Rating: 
Summary: Great teenaged narrator, let down by ending
Review: I stuggled with how many stars to award this book. While Brian Malloy is clearly an author of considerable talent, and while the character of Kevin Doyle is a vibrant, three-dimensional creation who embodies many dimensions of teenaged conflict and desire, the arc of the story is horribly incomplete. The last chapter comes across as a rush job, as though Malloy thought it was time to bring everything to a close and just didn't know what to do with the characters. Maybe he thought the final scene would come across as a bold, creative move, but for me it was a little too much "Touched by an Angel" and therefore emerges as a major detractor factor. So, prospective readers be warned: as far as this novel is concerned, you will enjoy the ride greatly, but in the end you'll feel like the driver dumped you off about three blocks shy of your destination. But oh, what a ride it is. One of Malloy's true accomplishments here is the way he dramatizes how frustration, desire, loneliness, and fear can push an otherwise sensitive, intelligent kid into occasional acts of rage and desperation. In more than one scene, Kevin's outbursts give expression to emotion that he otherwise feels he does not have permission to state, including his anger at his father and the yearnings, frustrations, and loneliness brought by his sexual attraction to other males. The book also does a great job of showing how accidents of fate can transform your life, whether it is a conversation with a stranger in a bar or an afternoon hanging out with a fellow student you just met at college. However small such events may seem on the surface, for the right person at the right time they can be utterly transforming. Malloy captures this wonderfully. The creative force behind the writing is tremendous. Malloy is particularly skillful at showing how Kevin comforts himself by creating other realities in his own mind, most particularly by imagining conversations with the boy who is the object of his affection. The tenderness that pours from Kevin in such passages only makes his outbursts in other scenes all the more shocking. At one point he is driven to lash out at this very boy, the one who has kept him so emotionally preoccupied for most of the book. The many setbacks, disappointments, and frustrations that have led to this point converge spectacularly. It is possibly the best depiction I've yet encountered of how gay-bashing is so much a twisted acknowledgement of the very reality that it seeks to destroy. Had Kevin Doyle developed a different temperament and sense of self, he might well have turned into a true menace to the gay community, despite his own gay feelings. Kevin's narrative voice is terrific. There is all the humor, pathos, and sexual energy that one might expect from a randy teenager. This is not lame, flat prose -- this kid is alive. Kevin's world is complex. He is pushed into an early sense of adulthood by his relationship with his troubled father. As with many children of alcoholics, he is forced by circumstances to take on responsibilities that ought not to confront someone so young, and the frustration that results only adds to his confusion. While Kevin is a vividly realized character, some of the others are not so successful. One that ultimately wore out her welcome for me was his Aunt Nora. A woman so unbalanced would either be institutionalized or the subject of a restraining order, and so her transition into a benevolent figure by the book's close rings especially false. In fact it got to the point that when she kept appearing over and over as a pivotal element in Kevin's story, I became annoyed. It is true that Kevin didn't have many options open to him so he probably would have had to depend on her in the way that Malloy writes, but if she had been a more believable creation I probably wouldn't have minded so much. In fact most of the female characters in this book don't come off very well. The primary motivation for nearly every one of them is to capture a man by whatever means possible. It strains credulity. For example, would widows and divorcees really stake out the home of a widower who only recently buried his wife, hoping to get a date? Malloy would have us believe that these women show up or telephone unexpectedly at all hours of the day and night, practically begging to be invited into the house. The one widow who does manage to emerge from the pack and temporarily win the heart of Kevin's dad is a pleasant exception -- we are actually sorry to see her fade away again. So, this is not a perfect book, but it is certainly worth reading for its beautifully accomplished rendering of Kevin himself, and for Kevin's hilarious, at times heart-breaking narration. As mentioned earlier, though, the ending does come across as forced. Characters who couldn't stand one another throughout the course of the novel are suddenly tolerant and supportive. It is a transformation that Malloy does not earn through realistic dramatization -- instead it just comes across as a fabrication. It's too bad that authors do not revise their books for subsequent editions the way that some composers revise their symphonies. If they did, in Malloy's case I'd suggest chucking the entire last quarter of "The Year of Ice" and giving us 100 pages of denouement that truly do right by Kevin. (For example, would it really have been so bad to at least let him share a kiss with one boy who loved him back?) Points off for a few underdeveloped characters and the rushed, unrealistic ending, but emphatic kudos for the character of Kevin Doyle.
Rating:
Summary: Pat ending pushes credibility
Review: At times this novel is very frustrating because the reader keeps waiting for Kevin Doyle finally to bed someone. But this novel is a little more than a teen-age awakening to sexuality. Kevin Doyle lives with his father in Minneapolis/St. Paul. It is now two years since his mother died in a car accident. Kevin is a senior in high school and not looking forward to a career in college or technical school. He is infatuated with a boy he abuses and he lets girls fall in love with him because he needs everyone to think he is straight. During this year of "ice" in which he ponders his mother's death, Kevin deals with widows who want to marry his father, his father, who has difficulty staying sober and stable, his Aunt Nora, an Irish woman and sister of his mother, who tries to tell him what he should think and do, his friends Tommy and Rick who depend on his being the alpha. Malloy tries to work reconciliation into the last fourth of the novel, but so much gets ripped apart in Kevin's life the reader wonders how Kevin is satisfied with that. While it is certainly a truism that people maintain ambiguous relationships with family members and close friends, this part of the novel does not convince and feels to pat. But sure finding the means of reconciling oneself with one's own being, one's family and friends is part of the growing process. And while Malloy does not suggest that this is achieved, he leads the reader into thinking it is well on its way. This is not dramatically satisfying. There is growth in Kevin and some of the others in the novel. The atmosphere is bleak, a reminder of the film Fargo, another Minnesota story. And one wonders is the stupidity some of the characters show will ever lead to growth. But in many characters there is some sort of self-acknowledgment and that is hopeful. For three fourths of the way, this book is convincing.
Rating:
Summary: A Brilliant Year
Review: Brian Malloy has written a gem of a novel. Kevin Doyle's voice is as clear as ice, but infinitely warmer. His story is told with great honesty and energy and humor. I read the book in one big gulp--it was impossible to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: Fun read
Review: Lotsa laughs. Do yourself a favor and get The Year of Ice.
Rating:
Summary: Fitting In, Not Coming Out
Review: Malloy's first novel is well written, funny, an interesting story of inner-city working-class families in the late 70s, a fresh look into the educationally marginal world of public high school students who don't really care, and a nuanced, convincing study of desperate sexual need in a world of sexual deprivation. But Kevin Doyle, the heartthrob (but really gay) lead, is much too smart for the obtuse ways he acts, the dumb things he says--for what actually happens in the novel. Everything has been hidden away, left unexplored, sanitized, probably for "the market"--Malloy apparently wanted to sell a book a lot more than he wanted to deal openly with difficult issues. Nothing really occurs here, no human agency is evident, and human ingenuity is useless. All the tough stuff is hidden away, tangentially alluded to, but safely distant. Kevin is 6 feet 2 (though utterly uninterested in anything athletic), so nobody can physically threaten him: but for most teenagers suspected of being gay (and Kevin shows little real interest in women even as friends), life at school is a physical and emotional hell. By the time we meet him, Kevin knows absolutely that he likes males and only males: thus, Malloy shows us nothing of that tremendously hellish period around puberty when kids who notice some same-sex attraction in themselves wonder desperately, often suicidally, what they are and what sorts of choices they might have. Despite his supposed obtuseness, Kevin knows what an alpha male is and that he is one, and he intimidates all of his buddies: but this observant young man (who can type off directly, as his first college writing assignment, a winning, introspective, critical, wry little autobiographical short story, with no mistakes, no rewrites, all the adjectives in the right places) never speculates about the life of beta males or what sexism is or how all of this fits into his complicated and negative relationships with his parents. His dad's selfish loutishness (which Kevin unselfreflectively mirrors) occurs mostly off screen, or in late flashbacks, so the reader is at a considerable loss as to why Kevin thinks so ill of him. We do not see anything of the pain and indigity which modern assembly-line work inflicts upon the dad, or upon Kevin's beastly Aunt Nora, or upon one of the dad's girlfriends who has endured 20 years at Pillsbury (we hear), or upon anyone (the hefty Kevin bags groceries, not exactly a hellish industrial occupation, and keeps in shape though he engages in zero exercise): but for each of them we are told that this sort of work has shaped their meagre, deprived, boring, un"cool" material and emotional lives. Causation is ignored by Malloy. People are genetically gay or straight. Working-class life is just going to be tough, no matter what. Kevin, a bored C student in high school, will, we are sure, "blossom" into something of an intellectual because that hidden ability is innately "there." People with hidden parts of their lives abound in this book, in fact. They often reveal them, and sometimes even grow in character--"things change" as one of the wiser Malloy characters says--but we have no clue as to why. Whatever "changes" occur in people or civilization were actually there to begin with, only somehow dormant or repressed, and we have no clue as to why some of them occur and others don't. According to Malloy, we really can do little to alter our lives, we are all utterly selfish, insular, and helpless. Kevin's predicament as a closeted gay youth in a working-class culture is shown to us so distantly, so safely, so completely disguised as selfishness, that we learn nothing about the real issues of life. Malloy is safe, not daring. He wants to fit in, not to come out.
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