Product Description

This text is a collection of stories from Helen Dunmore, ranging from Victorian tragedy to the tale of a dinner-lady's love, from the death of a lighthouse keeper's wife to the birth of babies from the Superstock catalogue.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #241838 in Books
• Published on: 2001-06-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Helen Dunmore has been described as one of England's "most accomplished literary talents", a writer of extraordinary skill and scope (her third novel, A Spell of Winter, was awarded the Orange Prize for fiction in 1996). The 18 stories included in Ice Cream, Dunmore's second collection of short stories, represent a genuine diversity of viewpoint, period and theme. The opening story, "My Polish Teacher's Tie", is one of the strongest: "I wear a uniform, blue overall and white cap with the school logo on it. Part-time catering staff, that's me, £3.49 per hour." "Me" is Carla Carter, the dinner lady who, to the surprise of the "teachers"--the division between teachers and those who wait on them is keenly observed here--is going to strike up a friendship with a visiting Polish poet. It's a recurring theme: love, or friendship, that comes as a surprise to someone. In "Lilac", a young girl watches her cousin, Tommy, kissing his best friend, Henrik; in "Choosing", the unexpected kiss between two women transports two friends to a new, yet familiar, place: "How did they get here?" There are other surprises--some funny, some anxious--in these explorations of women's lives and experiences. "Leonardo, Michelangelo, SuperStork" is an unsettling vision of pregnancy in a world governed by the ruthless imposition of the ante-natal clinics and the "Genetic Code"; "TheKiwi-Fruit Arbour" explores the language of pregnancy--"Pregnant. Not pregnant. Mother-to-be. Young girl with her life in front of her"--through the eyes of a working-class teenage girl whose young lover comes from a "good" family.

Living up to Dunmore's reputation for originality, accessibility and flair, Ice Cream is a welcome addition to her fiction. --Vicky Lebeau

Review
"* 'A talent to rival Chekhov... a few of the stories are enough to make you laugh out loud; even more are enough to make you weep (for the right reasons)' Sunday Express * 'Cool, elegant and beautifully controlled, the stories in Ice Cream display Dunmore's virtuosity and command of language... this is storytelling stripped to essentials: a series of images that flicker in the mind's eye long after the page has been turned' Independent on Sunday * 'She is a writer who can wrap up artifice in plain, straightforward speech, and evoke summers in the midst of winters of discontent. In these and other particulars, she has proved herself a strong contender for future prizes' Anita Brookner, Spectator"

About the Author
Helen Dunmore has published six novels with Viking and Penguin, including A SPELL OF WINTER, winner of the Orange Prize. She is also a poet and a children's novelist. She lives with her family in Bristol.

Customer Reviews

Stories that reveal a poet's eye
Dunmore's second collection of short stories shows just how much her writing has matured since her first, Love of Fat Men. Not only does she write like a dream, with a practised poet's skill in always lighting upon the arresting image, she also has the poet's gift of observation. These stories are minatures of love, loss and unregarded affection. I especially loved the title story. A book to be read slowly, and savoured.

thought provoking, innovative and fresh
This book is a collection of short stories about a range of subjects from love to babies. The stories are all fresh and inspirational. I can't even pick a favourite as they are all good. This may be your first Helen Dunmore book, but it will not be your last.

A collection of frustrating, very tedious little stories.
They seemed to be a collection of ramblings. Not one of these stories captured my interest in fact, not one of the stories had any substance to it. Just when you think the story is about to 'take off', it stops. Perhaps that is the (very) hidden beauty of short stories but, to me, it was infuriating that I had devoted time to reading story after story and still to have no sence of completion at the end. The only reason I read the book to the end was to give it the benefit of the doubt ... jus in case the final page of the final story had anything to turn my opinion around. Alas, it didn't.