In The Country of Ice Cream Star

In the Country of Ice Cream Star is one of the best books I've read this year! Even though it's like so many post-apocalyptic novels right now - a young girl in the not-so-distant future battles adversity, etc, it's terribly inventive and original. A plague has wracked the United States, killing a huge majority of people. Little pockets of people remain in this area called "Massa" - all the survivors are black. No one lives for more than 20 or so years. The entire book is written in a kind of patois invented by the author, Sandra Newman. It reads like this:

Fat luck been the story of this year. Snares ever struggling full, and every arrow find a turkey. Any a sleeper street we did maraud, that street did give food. We war like twenty guns, but no one injure. Sling our hammocks in the crowns of sycamores like secret birds, and rest there, chattering and smoking, noses to the stars. Children forgot the taste of hunger and the touch of fear.

The language is beautiful. Sometimes she gets around to explaining what words mean and sometimes you have to just figure it out - I LOVE that. It took me about three times longer to read this book than it normally would have for a book this size, but I loved every minute.

Ice Cream is a girl of about 16 who lives in the woods with a bunch of other children. Nearby live some "Christings", also a group of people that live in an old factory called Lowells, and an army of boys.

Ice Cream's people are called Sengles and they're known for being amusing liars and brave soldiers. "We flee like a dragonfly over water, we fight like 10 guns, and we be bell to see.  Other children go deranged and unpredictable for our love."   Her brother gets sick with the illness that causes people to die at a young age and she is trying to save him.  They find a white "Roo" who claims his people have access to a cure.

I'm going to get slightly spoiler-y below, so stop reading if you don't like surprises.

I got a mad, irrational crush on the NewKing Mamadou, just like Ice Cream. They say hateful things to each other and fight, then have sex in his tent on animal hides kind of like Brad Pitt in Troy? (Or so I imagine.) As king of the armies, Mamadou takes part in this ritual they've created with the Christings where they take one of their women to be a "simper" - basically a harem of women at the mercy of the army boys.  After the ritual turns into a violent abduction, Ice Cream is furious with her sometimes-boyfriend.  Although he doesn't rape the simpers, he gives his tacit agreement to the army boys who do.  Controlling women through rape is a persistent theme in the book and Ice Cream is ever-aware of this threat.

Eventually Ice Cream and the roo, Pasha, make their way to the City of Marias where Ice Cream is convinced to play the role of Maria and Pasha, her white Christ. This part is pretty complicated but really fascinating, especially in terms of race, religion, and policing of virginity.  Based loosely on the tenants of Christianity, it really helped me recognize, in a way I oddly haven't before, how dramatically practices of religion change over time.  Because lifespans are so short, and generations are basically flipping on fast-forward, things change really quickly.

Coincidentally, my friend told me how she was reading Laura Ingall's books to her kids and Laura described a typical Sunday in which they wouldn't so much as ride their horses to church because that was considered breaking the practice of the church so they walked the whole way. That was just a little over 100 years ago but today the only people not flipping on their electricity on the Sabbath are orthodox Jews.

There are a few interesting articles out there on the book worth checking out - also a bit spoiler-y, so wait until you're done reading if you want.

From the NYTimes: a surprisingly negative review that I nevertheless enjoyed reading because of a couple of hilarious zingers, like "It’s not revealing too much to report that the readers most likely to enjoy this novel are those who can tolerate nearly 600 pages of pidgin English and those who are nostalgic for the Cold War." and "At times, this can sound a bit like Jar Jar Binks narrating an audiobook of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road." I really totally disagree with that, but it's still pretty funny.

A great interview with Sandra Newman in the WSJ and and another interview that touches upon her decisions regarding race and her invented patois and also some charming bits about how much she loves the book (she naturally very proud) and also reveals... there's a SEQUEL coming!