Where overtly repressed characters are concerned, the sensual world may suddenly beckon like a promised land.
Ice cream is but one of the tastier symbols for this choice.
But common to each story is a protagonist who must choose to step further into the world or to retreat from it. Nominated for this year's Orange Prize (an award Dunmore won in 1996 for her third novel, 'A Spell of Winter'), 'Ice Cream' is rich indeed with images and textures that linger in the imagination.Īnd these 18 diverse tales come in myriad fictional flavors, ranging in tone from celebratory to apocalyptic, and in subjects from family tragedy (like the drowning at a turn-of-the-century seaside resort in 'Emily's Ring') to young love (the gay teen affair that blossoms unexpectedly in 'Lilac'). A luscious, hedonistic quality suffuses 'Ice Cream,' the second collection of short stories by Helen Dunmore, the prolific British poet and fiction writer.
