The Ice-Cream Makers

by Ernest van der Kwast

In this international bestseller, a poet struggles to decide if he should put his family's or his own needs first when he returns to Italy to help run the ice cream dynasty he left behind years ago in this charming tale perfect for fans of A Man Called Ove.
As the heir to a proud Northern Italian ice-cream dynasty, Giovanni Calamine's family is none too happy when he decides to break with tradition and travel the world as a notable poet. So when Giovanni receives an unexpected call from his brother, he is faced with a difficult decision: return home to serve in his family's interests or continue on his own path in life once and for all?
In a heartwarming tale that weaves history with lore and poetry with delicious culinary curiosities, The Ice-Cream Makers paints a century-long, multi-generational portrait of a family wrestling with the conflicting pulls of legacy and desire.

Genres: Fiction, Italy, Contemporary, Adult, School, Literary Fiction, Dutch Literature

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 2, 2015

About the author

Dutch writer Ernest van der Kwast was born in Mumbai, India. Mama Tandoori (2010), his breakthrough novel, enjoyed huge success in the Netherlands and Italy, selling over 100,000 copies. In 2012 he produced the novella Giovanna’s Navel, which entered the Der Spiegel bestseller list immediately after publication in Germany in spring 2015. His fluid, sensual style has charmed critics everywhere. As German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung put it ‘Ernest van der Kwast flutters around his storyline like a butterfly and his playfulness delights the reader.’ He works in his hometown Rotterdam as a programme-maker and presenter.

Reviews

[Zoe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant, intriguing, and delightfully entertaining!

The Ice-Cream Makers is set in both Rotterdam and Northern Italy and is the multi-generational story of the Talamini family and their ice-creaming making dynasty.

It centres around two brothers; Giovanni, the oldest who decides to branch out from tradition and lead a life filled with words, festivals, travel, and independence; And Luca the youngest who does what is expected and continues the family business of making ice cream like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather did before him.

The prose is rich and sophisticated. The characters are unique, diligent, and authentic. And the story is ultimately about family, sacrifice, responsibility, guilt, tradition, love, poetry, and ice cream.

Overall the Ice-Cream Makers is a well written, fascinating story that reminds us that family legacies can often be a blessing and a curse, that the choices we make often have far-reaching consequences, and that ice cream is the result of mouth-watering ingredients, a complex process, and a lot of hard work.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

All my reviews can be found on my blog at http://whatsbetterthanbooks.com

[laura (bbliophile) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this.

[Cornelia · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I thought: The cover (with the ice cream cone) looks nice. The blurb makes a nice impression. I liked the description of the making of the ice cream and the pleasure it brought - reading it makes you want ice cream. Unfortunately that was the only positive thing about the book for me.
What bothered me most was the sexual, macho comments that ran through the book and seemed just as inappropriate and unnecessary to me as the very pictorial description of sexual experiences of the first-person narrator, and the myriad pages in which it's all about how big the breasts of a girl in the village have become. You can tell that the book is written by a man.
Partially extremely confusing I found these frequent time jumps. There is no real thread running through the book. There are more fragmentary descriptions of situations that are supposed to form a "big picture", but which in the end do not go together. I had no particular incentive to finish the book, found it neither exciting nor interesting, and ultimately just finished it for the sake of completeness.
I can not recommend the book.

[David V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received as an ARC from the publisher. Started 7-22-17; finished 7-27-17. Tells the story of a multi-generational family of Italian ice-cream makers in the Netherlands and the youngest son who prefers to become a poet. Along the way the reader gets a lesson in the history of ice-cream making, and the flavors described make you SO HUNGRY for the treat. Although the book has been touted as one for fans of A Man Called Ove, I found it to be similar in style but still not as compelling as Ove. It does keep your interest and the characters are certainly fascinating. It would make a good movie, and just like the movie Chocolat makes you want chocolate, this one would cause a run for the frozen confection.

[Rachel Rier · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author can’t go more than a couple pages without describing a pair of ta-tas. About 10 pages in, I gave up after this paragraph about a preteen girl- “At home, in her room, she sometimes held her breasts for hours. ... She was becoming a woman and she needed a man, a man to hold her.” Every female character (who isn’t old) is a collection of body parts!

[Desirée Boom]

I thought this would be a book about the ice making family Talamini, but that's only about half of it. The other half is about the eldest son who works in literature, and the feelings of betrayal his family have because of it, and chapter two is almost completely about how Giuseppe's girl friend developed breasts and how he and all the boys in the village can only look at those breasts, and how much they ache and how she spends hours holding her breasts. No thanks. Male authors, hear this: we do not spend all day thinking about or holding our boobs! Stop writing things like this, please. All in all, I found it a bit tedious, so I abandoned it after 77 pages.

[Katie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was really hoping I’d enjoy this book but I didn’t at all. I found it boring, I struggled to understand the time line and didn’t feel endeared to any of the characters. Bland is a word to describe it. Plus reading about men objectifying women gets old very quickly.

[Tanja Jasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eine tolle Mehrgenerationengeschichte über Familientraditionen und -dynamiken und was passiert, wenn man diesen unfreiwillig folgt oder alternativ aus diesen ausbricht.
Dazu eine tolle Sprache! Hat mir ausnehmend gut gefallen :)

4,5 Sterne!

[Tripfiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel set in the DOLOMITES with lots of ice-cream (what's not to like?)
A delightful book combining village life in Northern Italy and ice cream. What’s not to like?

This is the story of one Italian family, bedded in the mores and traditions of the Dolomites, who create wonderful recipes for commercial ice cream.

Way back when, in the Autumn/Winter time the menfolk would set out on foot from Venas Di Cadore (near Cortina d’Ampezzo) to walk to Vienna (imagine! That’s well over 500km and easily a three week walk away) to sell locally collected Italian chestnuts. It was in the Austrian capital that an ice cream machine was spotted and Giuseppe Talamini was soon lugging the equipment back to his home village. It took a while to create and master the recipes but he persevered. Ice had to be collected from the glaciers and transported back to the village, dripping as it melted, to feed the rotating ice-cream drum. Giuseppe experimented with mouth-watering flavours, honed the balance of ingredients and soon he had the local populace asking for more. A family business was successfully established!

Through the generations the Talamini family set up their Summer shop in Rotterdam and now the current generation is due to take over the concern. Luca soon gets stuck in but brother Giovanni has his heart set elsewhere, a literary career focussed on poetry beckons. For him “a life without poetry was a life less lived”.

This is as much as story about ice cream as about family and brotherly love, splintered by internecine upset. Both brothers set their eye on Sophia, but it is Luca with whom she makes her life. Theirs, however, is a troubled marriage. The pressure of bearing a child mounts, yet the years pass, no child appears and soon Sophia is sinking into depression. How can the brothers reconcile, how can the tradition of ice cream making continue in the family…???

If you are after a sensory and emotional journey with the odd scoop of lemon sage or orange or vanilla or cherry ice cream to help you on your way, then do choose this book. It occasionally meanders off course, but soon comes back to a being a satisfying and interesting read. All credit to the translator Laura Vroomen.

[Martina Bahat · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.7* Topla priča o povijesti jedne obitelji, nastanku sladoleda te tuzi i otuđenosti koju breme naslijeđivanja donosi i prenosi iz generacije u generaciju...

[Ludwig Reicherstorfer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eine wunderschöne Geschichte in einer Welt, die einem sonst nicht ohne Weiteres begegnet. Bisweilen melancholisch und doch insgesamt zuversichtlich. Obwohl doch einiges passiert, gelingt es dem Autor mit seinem ruhigen Stil, die Leser an die Hand zu nehmen.

[Suzanne Louis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik vond het echt een leuk boek, in het genre zou ik niet weten wat ik nog meer zou willen! IJsjes, Italianen, poëzie, Rotterdam. Generaties met een herhalend patroon. Herkenbaar en mooi opgeschreven. Zeker een aanrader voor de zomer

[Rozemarijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8

Sinds ik dit boek heb gelezen heb ik een enorme craving voor Italiaans ijs. Ik kan niet wachten tot de zon goed is doorgebroken en het kwik omhoog gaat, want dan ren ik naar IJssalon Venezia! You bet!

[Mireille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Het begin kwam wat traag op gang, maar daarna werden er minder losse verhaallijnen uitgewerkt. Het was wel erg leuk om te lezen over een ijsmakersfamilie en het maken van ijs als ambacht. Bijzonder onderwerp!

[Clodagh · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a real shame I didn't enjoy a book about making ice cream. Unfortunately, I had no idea what the plot was, and it was way too straight white male.

[StefanieFrei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sinnlicher Genuss zwischen Pflicht und Liebe, der bewegt, statt einfache Lösungen aufzutischen

„Wir wollen so viel an die nächste Generation weitergeben. Eis, Poesie, Werkzeug. Eine bestimmte Lebensweise. Nichts will man verloren gehen lassen, weil man sich sonst selbst infrage stellen müsste.“ S. 349

Ernest van der Kwast schreibt vom Leben der Familie Talamini, aus dem Tal der Eismacher in der Region Venetien, Provinz Belluno, nord-westlich von Venedig. Er erzählt aus der Sicht des Ich-Erzählers Guiseppe über die Gegenwart der Familie, mit Rückblicken auf die Familiengeschichte ab dem Urgroßvater des Ich-Erzählers, der ebenfalls Guiseppe hieß. Dieser war der erste Talamini, der Speiseeis hergestellt hat. Mühselig musste er die Maschine dafür mit der Hand drehen („drehen, drehen, drehen“ ist eines der oft wiederholten Motive); das Eis zum Herunterkühlen der Zutaten hatte er selbst aus den Bergen geholt. Er war zuerst als Maronibräter nach Wien gegangen, bevor er seiner Faszination für die Eisherstellung nachgeben konnte. Seine Nachkommen folgen der Familientradition: der Vater des Ich-Erzählers, Beppi (natürlich auch ein Guiseppe), sah mit seinen zwei Söhnen die Nachfolge als gesichert an. Als Kinder sind die Brüder noch unzertrennlich, selbst, als sie sich beide in Sophia verlieben: „Luca und ich spielten beide eine absurde Variante des alten Ich-bin-nicht-verliebt-Spiels, und irgendwann konnte ein Dritter mit unserer Beute das Weite suchen. Doch dazu kam es nicht, es trat nie ein Dritter in Erscheinung.“ S. 134

Stammhalter Guiseppe entscheidet sich gegen die Familientradition: er liebt die Poesie, studiert, arbeitet im Verlag, für eine Lyrikzeitung, für Lyrikfestivals. So übernimmt der jüngere Sohn Luca das Familiengeschäft. „Er [der Bruder, Luca] arbeitete sechzehn Stunden am Tag, machte Eis, verkaufte Eis, reinigte die Maschinen und fiel am späten Abend wie ein Klotz ins Bett. Seine Welt war das Eiscafé, meine begann dort, wo die Terrasse aufhörte.“ S. 180 Es ist hart, das Leben der Eismacher, mit langen Arbeitstagen in der Fremde, Wochen ohne Wochenende oder Freizeit, auch ohne die Kinder, die der Schule wegen in Italien bleiben, im Internat oder bei Verwandten. In den Sommerferien besuchen die Kinder ihre Eltern dort, wo die ihre Cafés betreiben, in Rotterdam, wie im Buch, oder in Deutschland, Österreich oder sonst in Europa.

Der Autor beschreibt viele Welten in seinem Buch: er berichtet von Lyrik-Liebhaber Guiseppe, der Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede von Hotels in der ganzen Welt kennt, aber sich sonst oft als Fremder fühlt, weil er soviel unterwegs ist; er erzählt die Geschichte der Eisherstellung, vom harten Leben in Norditalien gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts; er redet vom Bruch in der Familie. Das Buch spricht von Liebe und Verzicht, vom Umsetzen von Träumen und von Pflicht, von Tradition und Moderne, von Hoffnungen und davon, dass nicht alles gut werden muss, wenn diese sich erfüllen. Es spricht aber auch viel davon, was ist, wenn Wünsche nicht erfüllt werden: „Ich sah, weshalb mein Bruder aus Olivenöl Eis zu machen versuchte, warum er Melone mit Minze mischte, warum er bis tief in die Nacht über Rezepten brütete. Ich sah, warum Sophia manchmal bis halb elf im Bett blieb und den ganzen Tag auf die Pfützen starrte, in denen kleine Kinder mit ihren Stiefeln herumplantschten.“ S. 220

Ich bin kein Poesie-Liebhaber (das Buch schreibt lange und viel über und von Poesie wie vom Eismachen), aber ich verstehe Faszination. Ich verstehe Genuss. Im Buch sagt der Vater über Sohn Luca: „Sein Vanilleeis ist so fest und unwiderstehlich wie der Hintern von Sophia Loren.“ Dazu antwortet sein Gast, jemand aus der Lyrik-Welt von Sohn Giovanni: „Jetzt weiß ich, von wem ihr Sohn seine Liebe zur Poesie hat.“ S. 190. Beides ist sinnlich, Kunst und Genuss – allerdings sieht das speziell der Vater nicht, sieht es Bruder Luca nicht – sieht es vielleicht nicht einmal Sohn Giovanni.

Während ich im ersten Teil des Buches nur vom Erzählstil gefangen war und davon, in mehrere mir fremde Welten völlig einzutauchen, ließ mich der zweite Teil vieles überdenken. Wenn ich für die Selbstverwirklichung bin, kann das auch das Ende von Traditionen bedeuten, den Verlust von Kulturgut: viele Handwerker finden heute keine Nachfolger mehr. Wenn ich mich der Pflicht verschreibe, bin ich hingegen vielleicht irgendwann verbittert und hasse die, die sich freier entschieden oder um derentwillen ich diese Pflicht auf mich nehme. „Wir wollen so viel an die nächste Generation weitergeben. Eis, Poesie, Werkzeug. Eine bestimmte Lebensweise. Nichts will man verloren gehen lassen, weil man sich sonst selbst infrage stellen müsste.“ S. 349 Ein starkes Buch, das sich einfachen Lösungen verwehrt und lange nachhallt.

[Miss Dandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein luftiges, aber nicht ganz leichtes Buch für heiße Sommertage! Ich mochte es sehr, dass hier nicht nur die Eismacherei thematisiert wird, sondern auch die Poesie, die der Erzähler Giovanni einbringt. Er ist das schwarze Schaf der Eismacherfamilie, der das Eiscafé hinter sich lässt, um sein Leben der Poesie zu widmen und die Welt zu bereisen. Zum Leidwesen seiner Familie und seines Bruders, der das Café übernehmen muss. Familiäre Spannungen sind da natürlich vorprogrammiert.

[Lidija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na trenutke jedva dvije zvjezdice, a na trenutke čak četiri. Čudna knjiga. Nisam se mogla ni s kim posebno povezati, dapače, više su mi bili odbojni, nego privlačni na bilo koji način.
Jedino sam stalno htjela jesti sladoled.
A ponekad i sjesti u prvi red nekog festivala pjesništva i slušati "čuđenje u svijetu".
Ipak, čini mi se da je sve to što mu je u duši i o čemu je govorio u ovoj knjizi, Ernest van der Kwast mogao napraviti bolje. Sigurna sam da jest.

[Merel Donia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ja, wat fijn! Eindelijk een boek over poezie dat niet zo cryptisch en elite is. Fijn verhaal, mooie lijnen. Ik heb genoten.

[Gönül · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine unterhaltsame Geschichte über eine Familie von Eismachern und den Drang auszubrechen. Der Autor schreibt über Schuldelgefühle, Familie, Poesie und seine Familie und natürlich über Eis. Van der Kwast webt beim Erzählen der eigentlichen Geschichte sehr viele Informationen über verschiedene Themen ein, in diesem Buch geht es sehr viel um Poesie. Mir hat es gefallen, er ist ein guter Erzähler.

[Renée den Breems · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wat een prrrachtig familie-epos. Het water liep me opeens in de mond voor ijs (zelfs al is het hartje winter), het volgende dat ik zal lezen is sowieso poëzie en Venezia op de Oude Binnenweg heeft een nieuwe dimensie gekregen 💖

[Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aanrader!

[Denice Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to dispel two thoughts you might have about this book based solely on its title and cover. This is not going to be sold to you as a summer reading book by me because in my experience the term “summer reading” equates as mindless read. This story isn’t mindless. And this is not going to be exploited by me as a summer reading book because the words ‘ice cream’ are in the title.
There, now lets’ talk about this story. Giovanni Calamine comes from a family whose tradition is ice cream. In the 1880’s this meant climbing a mountain to find the snow and carrying it back down the mountain. It meant introducing this concept of flavored ices and creams to people in your town who were skeptical until that first taste. It meant devoting your entire life, and the life of your family to the production on a small scale of this delicious treat. It meant travelling by foot every year through the mountains of Italy to Rotterdam, in the beginning, with the ice cream maker on your back, to continually make and sell ice cream and then travelling back home to Italy for the winter to rest. It meant never knowing summer because summer meant making (churn churn churn) ice cream for generations.
But for Giovanni Calamine, life wasn’t about ice cream, it was about poetry. He wanted to be a poet. He studied for it, wrote it and lived it. His decision affected the life of his family and his brother so it’s no wonder this decision was not met with joy from his family.
And then, Giovanni must return home from his world wandering. He must confront face to face his decisions and what it meant for his family and he has yet another one to make. Maybe two. But what he learns the most is that no matter what, a family is a family and a decision made by one affects all and when does a person feel the freedom to make their own choices for their own lives and what goes round, comes round. I told you this wasn’t a simple story.
Yes, this is a very good story on many levels. We also learn about the early days of ice cream production, but there isn’t an overload on that. It’s just enough to tell the story. We follow the lives of a family for more than a century and I always like watching how families evolve into what they are now, decisions being what they are. And yes, there are some really interesting ice cream flavors as part of the conversation. As a hobby ice cream maker myself, this was personally fun. And most of all, this story is a thinker.

[Doranna · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I hated this book. The characters are flat, unrealistic and incredibly stupid. The story is even worse. There is hardly a plot, and the little bit there is is very confusing because of the time jumps.

Seriously, they’re horrible. One moment, a baby boy is born. Two pages further, he’s all grown up. Then he’s seven months and then he’s grown up again.

Most characters are obsessed with sex. There’s no other way to put it. This writer has some serious issues. Especially the second sex scene was truly awful, because it made no sense whatsoever. I will never understand the logic behind that decision, and I suspect there is none. Which brings me to my next point.

None of these characters has something even close to a brain. They all make nothing but terrible decisions and blame each other for it. Except the youngest Giuseppe, as the author didn’t even bother trying to give him a personality. Thinking about it, with the others he definitely tried, but also definitely failed.

The writing is clearly supposed to be high-level but due to many errors in grammar and even more awkwardly formulated sentences feels like a twelve-year-old was trying to write literature. Usually you can read through small mistakes, but here things actually made no sense because the sentences didn’t.

At the beginning of the book, there’s a few pages from Maria Grazia’s perspective. I’m not even sure what happened here, but I can assure you it was written by a man, as I can’t imagine there’s a single woman on the planet who thinks like that.

The book has a habit of making random lists, which serve no purpose for the plot and are usually boring. Like summing up all the tools you can find in their basement. Or listing hotel rooms from all over the world and random facts about them (for four pages!).

In short, a respectable but terrible attempt at literature, with a boring and confusing plot, stupid and unrealistic characters, written completely from a man’s perspective, even when there’s a woman talking. One good thing about the book? Okay, give me a minute (seriously, I spent the whole time writing this review trying to come up with something). I liked the description of making ice cream (though it was repeated constantly, eventually making me hate it as much as the rest). Maybe the poetry, though I felt I was pushed to a certain opinion on poetry I didn’t even like that much.

[Shelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is really a 2.5 rating. I'm not sure what I expected when I signed up for an advanced copy of The Ice-Cream Makers but what I got wasn't it. Though Italian culture and the history of the Northern Italian Ice-Cream makers are subjects which should have interested me, I had a difficult time getting into the story of the Talamini family (or is it Calamine? The translator probably changed that for the novel's U.S. release thanks to the well-known anti-itching lotion.). I don't know how much of the heart of the story was lost in translation but the form was sort of anecdotal which doesn't flow well and often confused me since characters from the past and present share the same names.
I did eventually get into the central story of the consequences of the oldest son's decision not to inherit the ice-cream business leaving his aging parents and younger brother to pick up the slack. The result is a thought-provoking look at evolving family dynamics and the weight of obligation. Every time, though, that I found myself really getting absorbed in the story I was jolted out of it when the narrative jumped back or forward in time or, in one instance, went on a chapter-long discussion of hotels around the world. Most frustratingly, one of these jolts happens at the end of the novel, leaving the reader guessing.

[Bart Vanvaerenbergh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wat een heerlijk boek (en niet alleen omdat het over ijsjes gaat).
Het verhaal begint bij de betovergrootvader van Giovanni, Giuseppe en eindigt bij zijn "neefje" Giuseppe. En dan is de cirkel rond.
Een verhaal over ijs maken (ik kreeg vaak zin om naar een ijssalon te lopen onder het lezen van dit boek), over hoe hard een leven kan zijn, over weg stappen van de familietradities, de verwachtingen van je ouders niet inlossen, ...
Ik heb bij momenten luidop moeten lachen bij de anekdotische stijl van van der Kwast.
Lees zeker ook "Mama Tandoori".

[Katie Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the language and writing in this book. It made me long for ice cream and poetry. It is not a traditional beginning, middle, end story, it doesn't really go anywhere but the journey is magical.

[Bart Kos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Door dit boek wil je ijs eten, zelfs in de winter

[Doro · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main protagonist was too obsessed with breasts so I lost interest in the story at page 166.

[Kees van Duyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ernest van der Kwast zette zijn eerste schreden op het schrijverspad in 2003, toen hij samen met een aantal andere auteurs onder het pseudoniem Yusef el Halal de verhalenbundel Man zoekt vrouw om hem gelukkig te maken publiceerde. Vier jaar later bracht hij onder een ander pseudoniem, Sieger Sloot, de roman Stand in uit. Onder zijn eigen naam debuteerde hij in 2005 met de roman Soms zijn dingen mooier als er mensen klappen, maar zijn doorbraak als auteur was in 2010 met Mama Tandoori. Van zijn boek De ijsmakers (2015) zijn de vertaalrechten aan zeven landen verkocht.

Giovanni Talamini stamt uit een familie van ijsmakers, maar hij kiest ervoor om zijn eigen weg te gaan door een carrière te beginnen in de wereld van poëzie. Hij wordt directeur van het World Poetry Festival, reist in die hoedanigheid de hele wereld over en heeft daardoor contacten met een grote hoeveelheid dichters. Zijn jongere broer Luca, die wel in de ijssalon is gaan werken en met hun beider jeugdliefde Sofia is getrouwd, doet op een dag een dringend en ongewoon beroep op hem. Helpt hij zijn broer en daarmee ook zijn familie of gaat hij opnieuw zijn eigen gang?

Hoewel het verhaal, dat voornamelijk door de ogen van Giovanni Talamini wordt verteld, voor een groot deel over hem gaat, kan het feitelijk worden gezien als een beknopte familiegeschiedenis van de Talamini’s. Ondanks dat het verhaal vooral gaat over de twee jongste generaties, komt de lezer ook wel wat te weten over het geslacht daarvoor. Hierdoor – hetgeen zonder meer interessant is om te weten – komt hij het een en ander te weten over de eerste ijsmakers die een kleine eeuw geleden naar Nederland kwamen en hier hun ijssalons openden. Natuurlijk is het verhaal in deze roman volledig fictief, maar verschillende situaties en omstandigheden komen wel degelijk overeen met de werkelijkheid. Het is duidelijk dat de auteur daar uitvoerig onderzoek naar heeft gedaan.

Ondanks dat het eerste hoofdstuk zich in het heden (2012) afspeelt, bestaat De ijsmakers vooral uit een opeenstapeling van herinneringen en in een enkel geval uit een vertelling uit waarschijnlijk overlevering. Uiteraard heeft veel dit alles betrekking op het maken van ijs, de verkoop daarvan en hoe de vaders willen dat zoons hun ambacht overnemen. Toch zijn er ook voldoende fragmenten of hoofdstukken die over de twee jongste generaties Talamini gaan. Deze twee verhaallijnen, die onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden zijn, zijn het meest boeiend. Omdat Giovanni zijn eigen weg gegaan is en niet voor het ijsmakersvak gekozen heeft, gaat een deel van het boek over zijn werkzaamheden in de wereld van poëzie. Dit zijn tevens de saaiste en minst aansprekende onderdelen van het verhaal.

Een van de sterkere items in de roman zijn de personages. Het merendeel van hen is bijzonder en een enkeling zelfs markant. Guiseppe (Beppi), de vader van Giovanni, is een van hen. Meteen in het begin van het boek verovert hij het hart van de lezer, wanneer hij, terwijl hij op de televisie naar het kogelslingeren kijkt, zijn liefde uitspreekt voor de Duitse deelneemster Betty Heidler. Een even aandoenlijke als humoristische scène. Humor is sowieso een van de middelen die Van der Kwast regelmatig gebruikt, maar daarnaast is zijn schrijfstijl eveneens beeldend, vlot, over het algemeen toegankelijk en zo nu en dan voorzien van mooie en poëtisch gelijkende zinnetjes.

‘De geschiedenis herhaalt zich’ is een gezegde dat nog weleens wordt gebruikt. In deze roman lijkt daar ook enigszins sprake van te zijn, want er zijn overeenkomsten tussen de oudste en jongste generatie Talamini’s. De laatste paar hoofdstukken laten dit min of meer zien. Het zonder meer lezenswaardige verhaal, oftewel de familiegeschiedenis, in De ijsmakers, is daarmee afgerond. Niet overal was het even boeiend, maar over het algemeen is het wel degelijk de moeite waard.