The Year of Ice: A Novel | 
| Author: Brian Malloy
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Category: EBooks
List Price: $12.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $2.96 (23%)
Rating:  74 reviews
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B000SN4SJ8
Publication Date: October 11, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
It is 1978 in the Twin Cities, and Kevin Doyle, a high school senior, is a marginal student in love with keggers, rock and roll, and-unbeknownst to anyone else-a boy in his class with thick eyelashes and a bad attitude. His mother Eileen died two years earlier when her car plunged into the icy waters of the Mississippi River, and since then Kevin's relationship with his father Patrick has become increasingly distant. As lonely women vie for his father's attention, Kevin discovers Patrick's own closely guarded secret: he had planned to abandon his family for another woman. More disturbingly, his mother's death may well have been a suicide, not an accident.
Complicating the family dynamic is the constant meddling of Kevin's outspoken Aunt Nora-who will never forgive Patrick for Eileen's death-along with Patrick's inability to stay single for very long. His loyalties divided between his father and his aunt, between his internal reality and his public persona, Kevin is forced to reevaluate his notions of family and love as painful truths emerge about both.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 69 more reviews...
 A real-male character. May 10, 2007
Michael Jones (Stroudsburg, Pa United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is one of the best gay novels I have read. The story tells of a gay high school students who dealing with the sexual frustration, being in the closet, a deceased mother, an irresponsible father, and more all within the mid 60's or 70's.
I found the main character's insight to the story to be quite comical. Many times
I burst into laughter from his aggressive/sarcastic thought process. I think that Brian Malloy has done an excellent job at creating the essence of a real boy (and I mean this gay or straight). The writing was excellent, an easy read, and quite enjoyable. This is a book that everyone should read once.
I never got tired reading this book. I did not feel that this book had any cliche themes that many gay novels seem to possess. This story is very tangible.
One of the best novels I've read! And, I've read a LOT of them. May 9, 2007
Greling C. Jackson Jr. (Atlanta)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Brian Malloy tells his story with simple words but memorable, wholly fleshed-out characters. He puts us inside the mind of Kevin Doyle, a 17-year-old Irish boy in Minnesota in the 1970's, who is gearing up for his eighteenth birthday and adulthood. In reading this story, I learned not only about Kevin's struggles to cope with late adolescence, but also about myself, as the story forced me to look back and re-examine my own late teen years. I'm a 23-year-old young black man in Georgia who is reading this, so that should tell you something about the story's universality. However, don't get the impression that it's a typical coming of age novel. It's hardly anything like the other books that have been put out there.
Apart from both being gay and both having been teenagers, I guess you could say on the surface-level that Kevin and I don't have that much in common. But, though our lives may have been lived quite differently, with different types of drama, I still see myself in this story. Malloy's talent is that he writes the way a 17-year-old boy would actually think. In this way, he appeals to a broad audience.
Malloy helps bring back youthful, vibrant memories of what it was like to once live at that age. Feelings of school daze and invincibility pour off the pages. Kevin, as we shall find, it just like any other teenager, only he's a little bit "different" in way that will soon be big and wild for him. But don't worry, the story doesn't center too much time around him being gay. The author does well in giving him a whole life apart from that.
The novel's material is appropriate for any 17-year-old, but it can be read by older adults. I don't want to give away the plot, but I will say this... It is one of the best novels I've ever read. The characters seem real and not like their serving in token roles. The author surprises you with the turn of every page and you never know what to expect. There are times when I laughed, times when I cried, and times when I felt angry.
Malloy has remarkable talent and thank him for writing this book and allowing me to have this experience. I'll definitely be getting a copy of his next book, whenever that comes out.
Wonderful first novel May 8, 2007
Blue (Washington, DC United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Happy to see that Brian Malloy has a new book out, I had another run at "The Year of Ice," his first novel. I liked it as much on the second read. He has captured an authentic voice in the story--a gay 18-year old struggling to live a "normal" teenager's life, but finding it next to impossible with a psychotic father, eccentric aunt and assorted other characters that have staked out pieces of his heart and attention. This is one of the few gay coming of age stories that rings true in all ways, notwithstanding the dysfunctional relatives and friends that litter the protagonist's personal landscape. Desperately hoping to discover a roadmap for living that most young people--and particularly gay youth--long for and forced instead to ad hoc it, we leave him at the end of the book feeling that he will be one of life's winners despite all of the road hazards that have already been thrown in his way. Brian Malloy will have a distinguished career as a writer ahead of him if any of his subsequent stories match this first one.
 Fairly slight. March 15, 2007
C. Lindsay (Jeonju, South Korea)
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I thought this book was fairly slight. It is an interesting enough read but does not really leave any lasting impression. It is reasonably well written but again I did not think it was anything beyond average.
I thought the character development was not particularly strong except for Aunt Nora, and sadly this character was not really explored or developed.
A gem of a book February 6, 2007
Benjamin (UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In The Year of Ice, Kevin Doyle gives an account of the troubled year that he turns eighteen. Kevin is a good looking boy, well built, likes to think of himself as the alpha male, he's an average student and no angel who's quite capable of getting into trouble; a likeable and popular lad with both his peers and adults. However he has a problem, he likes guys in the way other guys like girls and has a crush on a fellow student, the beautiful Jon Thompson. Kevin is not sure if Jon likes guys or girls; but he lives in hope and in the mean time makes do with an imaginary Jon Thompson in the form of his pillow and with which he converses each night as he goes to bed.
Kevin lives with his dysfunctional father Pat; his mother was killed in a car accident two years ago. His good looking father is now vigorously pursed by all the neighbourhood widows. Pat had an affair with divorcee Carol Gunderson who's niece Laurie Lindstrom has a crush on Kevin. Kevin's bombastic Aunt Nora, his mother's sister, thinks Pat is a waste of space; she wants Kevin to live with her.
Kevin has a girl friend, Allison; it's a good camouflage for someone who likes guys. He has two good friends: his best friend the near delinquent Tommy, and Rick Foley.
Kevin thinks he is the only guy in the world who likes other guys that is apart from his English teacher Mr Hayes (nickname Fey Hayes, addressed by Kevin as Miss TerHaze).
Although naive when it comes to what two guys who like each other do together, Kevin dreams of what it would be like to run his hands over another guy's body. When he meets Chuck, a twenty two year old student, he gets his hopes up, but much as Chuck likes Kevin, he is straight. However Chuck's unflinching acceptance of Kevin's sexuality gives him hope.
Kevin narrates the year's events frankly, holding nothing back. He tells the story with great and at times cutting wit and immense humour. The characters come over as vivid and believable, but it is Kevin who is the real star; thoroughly likeable, honest and loyal, capable of losing it at times when provoked, but large hearted and true to himself.
Brian Malloy's book is a real gem, extremely funny even when dealing with heartbreaking events; it is an absolute joy to read.
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