The Ice House

By Laura Lee Smith

The heartrending tale of a man on the verge of losing both his livelihood and his relationship with his only son.

From a writer who's been praised for her 'intelligence, heart, wit' (Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls):

The Ice House follows the beleaguered MacKinnons as they weather the possible loss of the family business, a serious medical diagnosis and the slings and arrows of familial discord.

Johnny MacKinnon is on the verge of losing it all. The ice factory he's run for decades is facing devastating fines following an accident and may have to close. He hasn't spoken to his son since Corran's heroin addiction finally drove Johnny to breaking point. And now, after a collapse on the factory floor, it appears Johnny may have a brain tumour. Johnny's been ordered to take it easy, but in some ways, he thinks, what's left to lose? Witty and heartbreaking, The Ice House is a vibrant portrait of multifaceted, exquisitely human characters that readers will not soon forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Release date: Jan 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781611859171

Reviews for The Ice House

[alphawoman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful characters and good plot. Universal themes, love, loyalty, self awareness, family, and morality.

[c.archer · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I took a chance on this book knowing little about the story or the author. I'm so glad that I did! This is a wonderful story filled with subplots and great characters that I really cared about. I found myself pulled back into the book and wanting to pick it whenever I had a free moment.I would suggest this book to readers interested in how families function during both good and bad times. It is the kind of book that makes you think about relationships and feelings. I know I was head over heals in love with this book and how it worked through the difficulties and unpredictability of life. It is one that I highly recommend.My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a nice book. The story, a couple fighting for their livelihood, their son's survival and their granddaughter's wellbeing, while facing the realities of growing older, is a good read. The problem? Other than two brief instances, the story did not evoke a single emotion or new idea. Oh well.

[dmclane_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wasn't expecting much from this book but to my delight and surprise I learned otherwise. I thought that a mundane story about husband and wife factory owners would be ordinary and not very interesting, at best there'd be some interpersonal relationships discussed that might have been interesting; however the author surprised me on several levels, earning my enthusiasm, my searching for her other work, and my recommending this to my book group. Suggest you try it, you'll likely be surprised as well.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Families, like life itself, can be so incredibly complicated. Trying to handle complications as they arise, take things day by day, works for awhile, but then comes a time where it seems as if everything is happening at once. Panic sets in, and sometimes things are not handled well. So it is in this wonderful novel, when Johnny and his wife find themselves with more problems than they can handle, the proverbial sh** has hit the fan.Jacksonville, Florida, Johnny came from Scotland, married the bosses daughter, and now they run the ice factory. A unique and very informative location. Equipment is not working right and now they are facing a huge fine from OSHA. Johnny's son from his first marriage has had drug problems in the past, but now find himself the sole care taker of his infant daughter. Johnny himself is facing a very serious medical problem. So on we go from Florida to Scotland and back. I enjoyed this book, a very likable family that tries to do the right things but sometime stumble. There is so much humor within, Johnny himself is quite a character, but his young neighbor Chamal is an absolute hoot, though facing family problems of his own. The tone of this novel is upbeat, even at serious times, so easy to read. The ending maybe a little too pat, but I was okay with that. Sometimes life has a way of arranging itself in strange but successful ways. I will miss the characters in this book, could have happily read on to see what comes next. But, alas the author had other ideas.ARC from Edelweiss.

[librarian1204 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Because I loved Heart Of Palms, the first book written by Ms Smith, I preordered this book. An excellent read. Great characters immersed in a story that moves from Florida to Scotland. The variety of characters tell the story from their own prospectives and keep the plot line moving.Reminiscent of the author’s first book, which is also set on the Atlantic Coast of Florida and is also a family saga. I particularly liked the part of the book set in Scotland. It captured time, place, people and tales.

[linda.a. · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Johnny and Pauline MacKinnon have been married for twenty-five years; they live in Florida, where they run the ice factory which Pauline inherited from her father. When the story opens the future of the factory is under threat because, following a serious leak of ammonia at the plant, the health and safety investigation has determined that the problem was caused by poor maintenance and a massive fine has now been imposed. Johnny, adamant that no short-cuts had been taken, is convinced that the leak was caused by an act of sabotage and that he knows who was responsible. He has lodged an appeal but, unless someone in the community comes forward with proof to support his theory, the factory will have to close, throwing all the employees out of work. Johnny was originally from Scotland, where he had married Sharon, his first wife, when they were both very young. They stayed together for a few years after their son, Corran, was born but various stresses resulted in her meeting and falling in love with Toole and, subsequently, their mutual decision to separate. Out of work in Scotland, Johnny accepted the offer of a job at the Florida factory, where he fell in love with Pauline. However, he maintained a good relationship with Sharon and continued to support his son, who always spent his holidays in Florida. In his teens Corran started to take drugs, eventually becoming addicted to heroin. Johnny and Pauline paid for several expensive rehab courses, re-mortgaging their home to pay for the final one.When the story starts Johnny is 30 years old, living a drug-free life in an isolated area of Scotland and, separated from his imprisoned, drug-addicted partner, is now a single parent, bringing up Lucy, his nine-month-old daughter. However, following the disappearance of Pauline’s wedding ring, which Johnny believes was taken by Corran to raise money for drugs, he hasn’t spoken to his son for almost a year and has never seen his granddaughter. When Johnny collapses on the factory floor, medical tests reveal that he has a brain tumour and surgery is scheduled for two weeks later. This catastrophic news makes Johnny reflect on what the future might hold. Realising that this pre-surgery time offers him the opportunity to build bridges with Corran and to meet his baby granddaughter, he decides to return to Scotland.Although I had been attracted to this story when I read the opening chapters on the “First Impression”, Readers First site, I wasn’t prepared for the way in which I would feel so compellingly engrossed in the lives of the characters, and the dilemmas and conflicts each of them faced. Once I had started to read I was reluctant to put the book down until I had finished it – then when I had finished it, I felt bereft of their company! The author’s skill at creating multi-dimensional characters was demonstrated throughout her story-telling, with each one feeling credible, no matter whether they played a major or a minor role.The story is told mainly through Johnny’s eyes but with enough input from the other characters to add a rich and convincing dimension to the development of the plot. He and Pauline didn’t have children of their marriage, although she feels very close to Corran, and one of the strands followed is her reflections on her childlessness when she is facing the possibility of a future without Johnny. The reader also follows her as she attempts to come to terms with the fact that her wealth and privilege has been derived from her father’s ruthless exploitation of his workers, as well as his violence and racism. Having refused to fully examine or challenge these unacceptable attitudes in the past, she now finds it difficult to resolve them because he has developed dementia. In Scotland Sharon, a hospice nurse and breast cancer survivor, continues to struggle as she works full time, spends weekends helping Corran (who lives a three-hour drive away) with baby-sitting her granddaughter whilst he works extra shifts on the local ferry. At the same time, she is having to deal with the realisation that Toole, her husband, is in the early stages of dementia. The exploration of the pressures she faced on a daily basis made me feel exhausted on her behalf!Corran is very realistically portrayed as an addict who is constantly having to struggle to resist the lure of drugs. The destructive effects that his addiction has had on his relationships was well captured; there were moments when the moving descriptions of the difficulties he and his father had in trying to communicate with each other almost had me in tears. Following the diagnosis of the brain tumour Johnny is told that he mustn’t drive, so he recruits Chemal, the seventeen-year-old son of his neighbours, to drive him around. Although he doesn’t yet have a license, the teenager proves to be an excellent driver and when Johnny decides to go to Scotland, he takes Chemal with him. I came to love Chemal, a very smart but socially-challenged young man, who has parents who appear to show little interest in him. He has been excluded from school because of his struggles with boundaries and authority and his inability to speak quietly leads to some occasionally moving, occasionally hilarious, interactions. I really enjoyed the relationship which developed between Johnny and Chemal, with the “second-chances” it offered each of them. In addition to the characters I have already mentioned, there isn’t one secondary character who doesn’t leap off the page as a result of the author’s ability to describe simple interchanges using highly evocative word-pictures. The authenticity of her perceptive portrayals of each of her flawed, complex characters is one of the real strengths of this novel, as is the way in which she demonstrates the insights and strengths they gain as they confront their demons. Her descriptions of the steamy heat of Florida with the frigid cold of the ice factory, of frantic urban Glasgow and the comparison with rural Scotland, add another evocative dimension to the story. Much as I enjoyed this book, there are two factors which influenced my decision to give it a four, rather than a five, star rating. I think that the final section of the story felt a little too rushed and, whilst some of the resolutions felt realistic and credible, others bordered on offering too much of a fairy-tale ending which, given the nature of most of the rather more “gritty” writing, came as a something of a surprise. My thanks to Grove Press and Readers First for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.