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The Ice Beneath You: A Novel
Just as The Things They Carried and Catch-22 spoke to their generations with truth and dark humor, this brilliant first novel defines the experience of war for its era.
Benjamin Jones, twenty-three, discharged after an army tour in Somalia, heads cross-country on a Greyhound, seeking refuge on the West Coast. He has left behind his best friend, Trevor, and Liz Ross, a female soldier with whom Jones has fallen in love. But Jones has also left behind a tragedy -- a horrible, split-second action made in Somalia -- that Trevor, Jones, and the army have implicitly agreed to forget.
Alone on the streets of San Francisco, and then north on the Washington coast, Jones finds that an uneducated ex-soldier is qualified only as a peep show fantasy object or as a hired hand to a bottom-feeding smuggler and pornographer. Recurring visions of his life as a soldier gradually reveal the full truth -- and agony -- of his experience, and a reunion with Liz and a violent confrontation with Trevor bring the young soldier's journey to a wrenching conclusion -- but one not without hope.
At equal turns tense, brutal, and poetic, The Ice Beneath You is a soldier's story for a time when there weren't supposed to be any more soldiers' stories.
Benjamin Jones, twenty-three, discharged after an army tour in Somalia, heads cross-country on a Greyhound, seeking refuge on the West Coast. He has left behind his best friend, Trevor, and Liz Ross, a female soldier with whom Jones has fallen in love. But Jones has also left behind a tragedy -- a horrible, split-second action made in Somalia -- that Trevor, Jones, and the army have implicitly agreed to forget.
Alone on the streets of San Francisco, and then north on the Washington coast, Jones finds that an uneducated ex-soldier is qualified only as a peep show fantasy object or as a hired hand to a bottom-feeding smuggler and pornographer. Recurring visions of his life as a soldier gradually reveal the full truth -- and agony -- of his experience, and a reunion with Liz and a violent confrontation with Trevor bring the young soldier's journey to a wrenching conclusion -- but one not without hope.
At equal turns tense, brutal, and poetic, The Ice Beneath You is a soldier's story for a time when there weren't supposed to be any more soldiers' stories.
234 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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58 people want to read
About the author
Christian Bauman
6 books30 followersChristian Bauman is the author of a critically acclaimed cycle of novels set in the 1990s (The Ice Beneath You, Voodoo Lounge, and In Hoboken) published between 2002 and 2008. He was a regular contributor to NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered for a few years. Bauman has been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, Rachel Maddow and Chuck D on Air America, Vin Scelsa on Idiot’s Delight, and featured in the New York Times and CNN.
Much delayed by a decade-long bout of swirling gypsy mumps, Bauman's fourth novel is slouching toward completion. Maybe this year? Maybe next.
Much delayed by a decade-long bout of swirling gypsy mumps, Bauman's fourth novel is slouching toward completion. Maybe this year? Maybe next.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 17, 2015
I had the pleasure of living in the same neighbourhood as the author for several years. He’s a fantastic guy, despite his peculiar affinity for oversized dogs. He gave me a copy of The Ice Beneath You as a (requested) Christmas gift.
The book is divided into two alternating narratives from the life of Benjamin Jones. In one, he is travelling across the United States, drifting and self-destructive. In the other, he’s a soldier posted in Somalia.
Throughout the story, it’s plainly obvious that something happened in Somalia, although it’s not revealed what it is until near the end. The suspense leading up to the big twist is beautifully executed, and the scene itself is very powerful.
The Ice Beneath You reminded me a bit of Catcher in the Rye, in the sense of aimless desperation conveyed. I found that it did a very good job at conveying the trauma felt by many veterans, and the lack of support available to them as they try to make sense of what they’ve lived through as they return to a society that is totally disconnected from the horrors of war.
I’m not often a fan of war books, nor of “modern” fiction, but I did enjoy this one. It’s well written and interesting, and it conveys it’s message with a reserved poignancy that is rarely successfully executed.
The book is divided into two alternating narratives from the life of Benjamin Jones. In one, he is travelling across the United States, drifting and self-destructive. In the other, he’s a soldier posted in Somalia.
Throughout the story, it’s plainly obvious that something happened in Somalia, although it’s not revealed what it is until near the end. The suspense leading up to the big twist is beautifully executed, and the scene itself is very powerful.
The Ice Beneath You reminded me a bit of Catcher in the Rye, in the sense of aimless desperation conveyed. I found that it did a very good job at conveying the trauma felt by many veterans, and the lack of support available to them as they try to make sense of what they’ve lived through as they return to a society that is totally disconnected from the horrors of war.
I’m not often a fan of war books, nor of “modern” fiction, but I did enjoy this one. It’s well written and interesting, and it conveys it’s message with a reserved poignancy that is rarely successfully executed.
August 1, 2022
Somalia. A small fishing town on the Washington coast. The streets of Mogadishu. His dad in a halfway house in Jersey. Kenya—where they prepped the boats before landing in Somalia. Basic training. Stoned teenagers filming amateur porn in a basement. A tiny Somali kid who simply got too curious, and too close to the boat and woke the soldiers, with their loaded magazines and itchy trigger fingers, onboard. Drill Sergeant Rose reminding Jones—In war, he who sleeps dies. Then, in the end, hunting with an ol' army buddy in Michigan when the memory haunting both of them finally rears its ugly head.
We're jerked all over the country and all over Bauman's—I mean, his character's, Jones's—memory and of his time in the U.S. Army Waterborne.
Many of the same questions soldiers would go on to ask themselves about their time in Iraq and Afghanistan, the coming-to-terms with "what happened" while they were "over there", what they do with themselves once they return home, it's all here, in the nineties, before Tora Bora, before the (2nd) invasion of Iraq, before twenty years, and more, of the War on Terror, it was already here. Albeit on a slightly smaller scale.
I found Bauman's style reminiscent of the nineties as well, of floppy flannels and holes in jeans, of grunge, of CNN, of wars fought overseas somewhere while the rest of the world, once the commercial break hits, decides to change the channel. "The Ice Beneath You" was published in 2002.
We're jerked all over the country and all over Bauman's—I mean, his character's, Jones's—memory and of his time in the U.S. Army Waterborne.
Many of the same questions soldiers would go on to ask themselves about their time in Iraq and Afghanistan, the coming-to-terms with "what happened" while they were "over there", what they do with themselves once they return home, it's all here, in the nineties, before Tora Bora, before the (2nd) invasion of Iraq, before twenty years, and more, of the War on Terror, it was already here. Albeit on a slightly smaller scale.
I found Bauman's style reminiscent of the nineties as well, of floppy flannels and holes in jeans, of grunge, of CNN, of wars fought overseas somewhere while the rest of the world, once the commercial break hits, decides to change the channel. "The Ice Beneath You" was published in 2002.
May 29, 2008
Bauman's first book, and it blew me away. I reviewed it on Bookslut, if it's possible to still find it there, I'm not sure. It may be among the lost issues. A great portrayal of life as a soldier (both in the military and back in civilian life) in this modern era.
June 11, 2007
An incredible book. Simply.
February 20, 2023
I'm not a big fan of war stories but there have been a few over the years that tore me apart. Add this one to that collection. The Ice Beneath You is gripping from the very first page. The story doesn't move in a linear way. You have to be ready to be jerked back and forth in both time and place, much as I imagine soldiers are jerked back and forth. The abrupt changes in setting only make the book more compelling.
The thing about this book is that it is so real. I've never been a soldier. I've never experienced the scorn and humiliation that marks an enlisted soldier. But I have a vivid idea now of how that feels and what that means. Mr Bauman creates characters that are true to life. He creates scenes that seem real to me. His portraiture of army life and the aftermath of army life is graphic and heart-wrenching. His characters are kids pumped with fear, and innocence, and determination, and compassion, and confusion and all that makes us messy human beings. And yet really? Human beings keep doing this? When ARE we going to evolve?
I highly recommend this book but I am warning you. It is a hard read. It's a devastating read in places and the images are not going to fade easily. It will open your mind and break your heart. But read it anyway.
Just a few memorable sentences:
"But the smart foot soldier knows that if you listen to it, to the pulse of the battle, you will learn when it's time to sit, and when it's time to act." p.29
"Sometimes it was time to write, and sometimes it was time to watch." p. 41
"In a land that has no electricity, the night settles with a firmness and finality most of the world has forgotten." p.117
"The dark, the night, molds to the city, and embraces it, feeding off the deep crimson brilliance of the sun's final bloody retreat into the Indian Ocean." p. 117
"What does it take? What does it take to slip through the tiny, hidden crack of normalcy, of reality?"
"Sometimes, Jones thought, the words of the prophets aren't written on the subway walls-they're found scrawled on the bottoms of bunks in merchant-marine ships anchored off the coast of Africa." p. 191"
"The only responsibility at the moment was not to cry and not to drown and not to freeze and not to jump out of the dark, wet tent, screaming a surrender: please, PLEASE, let me go home now, you heartless bastards." p. 208
"Tell me, honestly, wouldn't you rather have a new pistol than a new girlfriend?" p 218
"And that quick, that sudden, like a vacuum of sound, it is silent." p. 225
The thing about this book is that it is so real. I've never been a soldier. I've never experienced the scorn and humiliation that marks an enlisted soldier. But I have a vivid idea now of how that feels and what that means. Mr Bauman creates characters that are true to life. He creates scenes that seem real to me. His portraiture of army life and the aftermath of army life is graphic and heart-wrenching. His characters are kids pumped with fear, and innocence, and determination, and compassion, and confusion and all that makes us messy human beings. And yet really? Human beings keep doing this? When ARE we going to evolve?
I highly recommend this book but I am warning you. It is a hard read. It's a devastating read in places and the images are not going to fade easily. It will open your mind and break your heart. But read it anyway.
Just a few memorable sentences:
"But the smart foot soldier knows that if you listen to it, to the pulse of the battle, you will learn when it's time to sit, and when it's time to act." p.29
"Sometimes it was time to write, and sometimes it was time to watch." p. 41
"In a land that has no electricity, the night settles with a firmness and finality most of the world has forgotten." p.117
"The dark, the night, molds to the city, and embraces it, feeding off the deep crimson brilliance of the sun's final bloody retreat into the Indian Ocean." p. 117
"What does it take? What does it take to slip through the tiny, hidden crack of normalcy, of reality?"
"Sometimes, Jones thought, the words of the prophets aren't written on the subway walls-they're found scrawled on the bottoms of bunks in merchant-marine ships anchored off the coast of Africa." p. 191"
"The only responsibility at the moment was not to cry and not to drown and not to freeze and not to jump out of the dark, wet tent, screaming a surrender: please, PLEASE, let me go home now, you heartless bastards." p. 208
"Tell me, honestly, wouldn't you rather have a new pistol than a new girlfriend?" p 218
"And that quick, that sudden, like a vacuum of sound, it is silent." p. 225
October 14, 2017
This was a re-read for me, because I'm writing military fiction myself and wanted to take a closer look at Bauman's writing style. I wasn't disappointed - he tells an interesting story but doesn't make it too easy on his reader (but also isn't fussy - it's a pretty great balancing act of good storytelling and good writing).
It also got me thinking about my own work, which was my reason for going back to it. Bauman's book is a guy's-eye view of the Army (sex and violence, although poetically told). I hope I can pull off a similarly balanced novel, but one that is truly a picture of a woman's experience, which is - in my experience, anyway - more subtly horrific.
It also got me thinking about my own work, which was my reason for going back to it. Bauman's book is a guy's-eye view of the Army (sex and violence, although poetically told). I hope I can pull off a similarly balanced novel, but one that is truly a picture of a woman's experience, which is - in my experience, anyway - more subtly horrific.
July 6, 2012
I wanted this to be good because of the war it talks about. But even though I psyched myself up, this book was pretty much just a non-linear
narrative that hoped you would be shocked because information was withheld. The stylistic maneuvers here accomplish little more than making
the book take longer to read than it should. The best thing here is that people who read this will become aware of another one of the conflicts Americans were a part of.
narrative that hoped you would be shocked because information was withheld. The stylistic maneuvers here accomplish little more than making
the book take longer to read than it should. The best thing here is that people who read this will become aware of another one of the conflicts Americans were a part of.
March 9, 2016
This book does a pretty good job of jumping back and forth timeline-wise and also geographically. A lot of authors totally screw that up but I had no trouble keeping track of those details. I got into the story and was actually hoping it was going somewhere but at the end it just didn't. The end felt like I just finished reading a random collection of thoughts and events from a soldier. Had that not the
been the case it could've been a really interesting story.
been the case it could've been a really interesting story.
September 24, 2009
I got this book for $3 at Borders and had very low expectations for it. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it an incredibly interesting novel about an officer's experience abroad and back at home.
July 29, 2007
has that elusive and rare feel of authenticity. sweet, lost, and honest.
September 8, 2007
I don't remeber much of this book.
August 16, 2009
I read this when my son was headed off to the Army. Helped me understand.
May 24, 2010
I received a glimpse into the inner world of soldiers. Far from the popular gung-ho that we have seen, but not the morose acceptance of fate trampling over hapless young men, either.
January 11, 2017
Decent book about two murders centered around a man and his affairs. The book is set in Sweden.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews