La tormenta de hielo (The Ice Storm) Book

It tries hard to be clever but the language carries a heavy & pompous aroma. Instead of it being cold, sad and brilliant, it is too insider-y, too ordinary a tale and almost overly faulty. It was written... why? That countless times the author tries to tie in the family drama with the strangeness of the times (1973), & fails, pretty much destroys its entire purpose, whatever that may have been and was not.

Yes, there is a tragedy (and when it comes to these dramadies, when doesn't that happen?) involving the death of a son. The son with an empty brain, just like the parents. What a waste in that the climax means less than what it is. There is retribution for the sins of the adults and this carries on to the sexual confusion of the offspring. The offspring are as advanced on this very annoying topic, and the adults are in absolute retrograde. There is a soliloquy of why the adults comport themselves the way they do in silly antirepressive verve. Sad to be so self-aware and yet do nothing about it. This could have been the Death of the Norman Rockwell's Brand "Ideal" Novel of the decade, but it just pretends to be as important.

I did like the touches of the literally broken family with the invisible cancer as both homes (the Hoods' and Williamses) leak after the pipes have been frozen due to the titular storm. Here is a symbolic gesture indicative of a sexually-delayed mentality, a self-imposed sexual deficiency. Everyone is confused, conceited. & somehow I expected better.

P.S. Some idiot in the novel has the tenacity to ask if the "new film" (opened that historical date of 12/26/73), based on a possessed child & the Catholic church, will amount to anything. I gasped when the losers say it wouldn't amount to a thing. I was SOO lost after that. Wish this had been better!