The Ice Storm

The Ice Storm

by Rick Moody
The Ice Storm

The Ice Storm

by Rick Moody

Paperback

$21.99 
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Overview

The year is 1973. As a freak winter storm bears down on an exclusive, affluent suburb in Connecticut, cark skid out of control, men and women swap partners, and their children experiment with sex, drugs, and even suicide. Here two families, the Hoods and the Williamses, com face-to-face with the seething emotions behind the well-clipped lawns of their lives-in a novel widely hailed as a funny, acerbic, and moving hymn to a dazed and confused era of American life.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780316706001
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication date: 04/10/2002
Series: Back Bay Books (Series)
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 403,038
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

About The Author

Rick Moody (1961) is an American author of novels and short stories best known for his 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two families over one long holiday weekend. An instant bestseller, it was later adapted into a film of the same name. His first book Garden State was published in 1992. His later works include The Diviners and The Four Fingers of Death. In 1999 he was designated by The New Yorker as one of 20 Writers for the 21st Century.

Hometown:

New York, NY

Date of Birth:

October 18, 1961

Education:

B.A., Brown University, 1983; M.F.A., Columbia University, 1986

Reading Group Guide

1. Discuss the book's title. Does it signify anything beyond the freak November storm that rages throughout the novel?

2. The Ice Storm is filled with period detail that captures the tone and texture of the 1970's. What might be different about the lives of the Hood and Williams families if their story were unfolding today?

3. Each member of the Hood family acknowledges feeling lonely. What accounts for this prevailing sense of alienation?

4. "Wendy's ambition was to be as unlike her mother as possible in every way." How unusual is such a sentiment in a fourteen-year-old girl? In what ways is Wendy's situation extreme?

5. Rick Moody has been frequently compared with John Cheever and John Updike as a chronicler of suburban American life. Do you think the drama (and comedy) of The Ice Storm is intrinsically suburban? In what ways might story be different if the novel's setting were urban or rural?

6. The Ice Storm is set in the era of the sexual revolution. Discuss the ways in which the radically changing mores of the time are reflected in the lives of each member of the Hood family.

7. The novel is narrated from four different perspectives. Was there one perspective, one series of passages, that you enjoyed reading more than the others? Why?

8. Benjamin Hood explains to his wife that unfaithfulness is "the law of the land." Do you agree with him? Do you think this justifies his adultery?

9. For which of the novel's characters did you feel the greatest sympathy? Why?

10. If members of your reading group have seen the movie The Ice Storm, discuss the ways in which the book and film differ, and the extent to which the film succeeds in capturing the book's essence.

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