Twilight of the Ice

by Harry Mark Petrakis

Overview

Twilight of the Ice, from acclaimed storyteller Harry Mark Petrakis, is a dramatic tale of revelation and redemption set against the backdrop of the 1950s Chicago rail yards. In a classic yarn expertly balancing the realistic with the mythic, Petrakis chronicles the life of Mike Zervakis, a Greek immigrant and the last in the line of the strong, skilled railroad car icemen, in a profession becoming obsolete with the advent of modern refrigeration.

After fleeing from the despotic Turkish occupation of his homeland of Crete, and then escaping from boyhood servitude in his uncle's shabby Chicago lunchroom, Mike at last finds his calling in the craft of the ice at the Team Track, the desolate ice depot in the heart of industrial Chicago. Here, under the oppressive rule of brutal foreman Earl, and bolstered by the camaraderie of alcoholic former schoolteacher Rafer Martin, Mike carves out his fate.

Mike's icing world is populated by a rough crew of old-timers and rookies, including the stoic Polish icemen Thadeus and Sigmund, the buoyant and reckless Noodles, the brooding war veteran Stamps, and Mike's young helper and surrogate son, Mendoza. This harsh world is also home to Mike's beloved, the prostitute Reba; Rafer's temptation incarnate, the fragile Leota; and the old iceman-turned-preacher, Israel, a man plagued with apocalyptic visions of a second ice age in which mankind's salvation would depend upon the chosen icemen.

Beset by age and a failing body, Mike yearns to find his heir, someone to whom he can pass his skill and his devotion to the craft. After finding only cold indifference among the young summer workers, he finally is introduced to the powerful young giant, S.K., a born iceman. But when S.K. carelessly causes the death of an icing veteran, old hatreds surface and Mike's dream of a successor seems doomed. All that remains for the master iceman is a final savage struggle against his exacting taskmaster, Earl, and an even more relentless foe, the twilight of his own life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940032837855
Publisher:	Harry Mark Petrakis
Publication date:	10/30/2011
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	218 KB

About the Author

Harry Mark Petrakis is the author of twenty-three books, short-stories, and essays, and has been nominated twice for the National Book Award. His books include the 'A Dream of Kings' (1966), set in Chicago, which was a New York Times bestseller. It was published in twelve foreign editions and was made into a motion picture (1969) starring Anthony Quinn. He has won the O. Henry Award, and received awards from Friends of American Writers, Friends of Literature, and the Society of Midland Authors. He was the Nikos Kazantzakis Chair in Modern Greek Studies at San Francisco State University and the McGuffy Visiting Lecturer at Ohio University. In 2004, the American College of Greece in Athens presented him with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree.

Editorial Reviews

For Mike Zervakis, icing railroad cars in 1950s Chicago, before refrigerated cars, is not just work but an art, and now, as he nears the end of his career, he is looking for someone to fill his shoes. For Rafer, icing is the job he needs as he struggles to stop drinking and go back to his wife and daughter. Earl, the mean-spirited site boss, uses the job to exorcise the frustrations of his home life. When SK comes along, Mike recognizes him as a future giant in the icing field and takes him under his wing-until he finds out that SK is Turkish, and old Greek-Turkish enmities flare up. In this short work, Petrakis (A Dream of Kings) creates many strong characters while deftly exploring multiple themes such as ethnic conflict, generational differences, family difficulties, and the battle with addiction in what would take other writers three times the space. Highly recommended.-Josh Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Twilight of the Ice is a powerful book, a dazzling creation, filled finally with grace. Grace everywhere.”—Father Andrew Greeley

“[D]istinguished Chicago novelist Harry Mark Petrakis is still going strong. His ninth novel and eighteenth book,Twilight of the Ice, is full of the brawny, brightly drawn ethnic characters that brought him international fame for Pericles on 31st Street (1965) and A Dream of Kings (1966), both National Book Award finalists. . . .With his rugged realist’s eye, Petrakis captures a colorful period and place once well known to Chicagoans but now almost forgotten.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

“[A] revealing tale about a time in Chicago, the early 1950s, when the railroad-car ice industry faced competition from new, refrigerated rail cars. . . . Throughout the story, Chicago readers will encounter streets and neighborhoods they recognize. Characters cross Roosevelt Road or turn onto Maxwell Street. But they do not shop in upscale stores. In Petrakis’ novel, this is a city of ethnic groceries and local restaurants—and now-long-gone icemen.”—Chicago Tribune

“In this short work, Petrakis creates many strong characters while deftly exploring multiple themes such as ethnic conflict, generational differences, family difficulties, and the battle with addiction in what would take other writers three times the space. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

“Not only does veteran novelist Petrakis take the reader back to Chicago circa 1950, when muscled, unexpectedly graceful, and stout-hearted ‘icemen’ risked limb and life to pack railroad cars with ice to keep produce fresh, he also peels back fiction to its essentials, building brick-solid prose out of realistic and humble details.”—Booklist

From the Publisher