The story focuses on the 24 hours in which a major ice storm strikes the town of New Canaan, Connecticut, just as both families are melting down from the parents' alcoholism, escapism and adultery, and their children's drug use and sexual experimentation.“My feeling then was of forlornness, of the desperate inadequacies of this human linguistic apparatus that we employ to forestall, a little longer, aloneness, and of how futile these fumblings so often are. Her daughter ventures into sexual liaisons with both females and males, including her neighbors Mikey and Sandy. Ben is currently having an affair with his married neighbor Janey. The Hood family members are Ben, Elena, Paul and Wendy, and the Williamses are Jim, Janey, Mikey, and Sandy. The novel is narrated by four members of the two families, each promoting his or her view of complications that arise throughout the novel.

The setting is an affluent Connecticut suburb during the height of the sexual revolution. The novel takes place over Thanksgiving weekend 1973, during a dangerous ice storm, and centers on two neighboring families, the Hoods and the Williamses, and their difficulties in dealing with the tumultuous political and social climate of the day. In 1997, the novel was adapted into an acclaimed feature film directed by Ang Lee, featuring a cast including Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood, Tobey Maguire and Katie Holmes in her screen debut. The novel was widely acclaimed by readers and critics alike, described as a funny, acerbic, and moving hymn to a dazed and confused era of American life. The Ice Storm is a 1994 American novel by Rick Moody. 1994 'First Edition' stated on copyright page Little, Brown and Company publishers, Boston hardbound in mustard and blue boards wtih gilt stamp lettering along spine very good condition with unmarked pages dust jacket very good.

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody