Ice Age

We stopped at a roadside diner. People asked if I was his daughter. They ask all the time. Hoping accusing. We never say yes and we never say no. We ate our food at a booth in a hungry selfconscious rush straight out of the wrappers. They didnt have plates. We left a tip just change. The waitress scooped it up straight away as we slid out of the booth. She was middleaged and bulgy in a proper matronly waitresss dress. She shot us what I suppose was intended to be a look of gratitude. She really only managed a weak glare. I guess thats the countryside for you. People are a little edgy. Across the heartless expanse of middle America a teenaged girl is riding shotgun with an older man. She watches him she sees her fascination tallied in the black looks of waitresses the knowing smiles of motel clerks. The man can see no proper way of conducting this relationship but is bound to her by concern and tenderness perhaps desire. The girl craves only closeness. She knows the Ice Age is coming and we will need to huddle together for warmth. Kirsten Reeds debut novel with its echoes of Nabokov Kerouac and Bret Easton Ellis captures the translucent moment at the end of childhood in all its awkwardness sincerity and heedless vulnerability. In prose both lyrical and earthy comic and darkly harrowing this extraordinary young writer creates a journey of irresistible momentum and tragic possibility. It will leave you with the sense that you have met someone significant and you will not soon forget her.