The Next Best Book Club discussion
Author/Reader Discussions
>
The Country of Ice Cream Star - author/reader discussion
This novels sounds as if it's in the thread of Cormac McC's The Road. I'm interested!I will happily participate in the online discussion and also happily post reviews to Goodreads, Amazon, and my social media sites to promote it (provided I can honestly offer it at least 3 stars).
I live in Maryland.
If I'm a chosen winner, just drop me a message in Goodreads.
This book sounds really interesting and I'd love to have the chance to read it and participate in the discussion with the author as well ...how cool is that?!! Please place an entry for me:)
I'd love to read this book and participate in the discussion. I'm a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre. I live in the US.
I would love to join in the fun! I'd love to enter my name in to win a copy and, of course, participate in the online discussion.
Oooh, this looks good! I'd like to read and I will participate if selected. I've added it to my To-Read list!
I have read some interesting reviews about The Country of Ice Cream Star, most specifically about the use of language. I'd like to read it for myself to see what all the furor is about. If I win, I agree to read the book and join the group discussion right here in this thread next month. I live in the U.S.
Omg I have been dying to read this since you first reviewed it Lori. Love, love post-apocalyptic fiction. Above All Men is still with me. Would be thrilled to participate on the discussion if I won.
I am very interested in reading & participating. Please include me in the giveaway.
I've had quite a few people recommend this book specifically to me. It's been on my to-read list since it came out and I'm excited to read it!
Sounds like an intriguing post-apocalyptic concept and the linguistic cultivation after generations type of world would be fascinating. I would be very interested in reading and participating in the discussion/review.
SO interested in this book! I agree to participate in the group read book discussion, can't wait! thanks!
Ooooo... Sounds interesting! I would love to read this. Plus, Ice Cream Star is a cool name. You can just send me a Goodreads message.Thanks!
Mod
I'll be reaching out to the winners in a moment so check your goodreads inbox!!!
Congrats to those who won and to those who did not, Don't give up hope! We host these giveaways monthly so your next opportunity to win is not far away!!
Mod
Sandra, it's so great of you to hang with us all week, as we talk about your novel THE COUNTRY OF ICE CREAM STAR. I absolutely fell in love with it when I read it. And it's the first book that I actual, willingly, took notes on as I went! (First out of necessity because of the dialect, but then I continued because I enjoyed breaking down my thoughts as I read)
I know you probably get asked this a lot, but I have to ask it here... how did you decide on the language? And how difficult was it for you to find the right voice in which to write it?
Hi Sandra,Thank you for being willing to participate in this discussion! This was one of the most unique and refreshing dystopian novels that I've ever read; it's truly special. Here are a few questions that I have for you:
1. I found it interesting that you depicted adolescents in a way that not only portrayed the best and worst aspects of human nature but also showed them assuming adult roles such as parents, warriors, religious leaders, and so on, and doing so with a great amount of maturity and capability. What were your thoughts as you were writing and deciding how these children were going to rule the planet?
2. I hated the civilization of the Maria-worshippers as I was reading, for their perversion of the Catholic faith and also b/c they presented this great hindrance to Ice and her quest; it was a real "how is she going to get out of this one??" scenario. Were there any characters or groups of characters in the novel that you really despised as you were writing?
3. The villainy (and perversion) of Catholicism was really interesting to me. It brought me to mind of all those old Gothic novels that presented monks, nuns, priests, and persons of governmental power with the Catholic faith as menacing or-oftentimes-downright evil. Was that something that you consciously set out to do within this novel, and if so, why did you feel it was important to show that aspect of religion-gone-too-far?
4. As I read, I grew to love the special language that Ice and the other characters used. Admittedly, it was a bit of a hindrance initially. Are you at all afraid that the complexity of the novel will deter the average reader?
5. Question #4 being said, who do you envision as the target audience for your novel?
Thanks again so much for speaking with us and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Hi Sandra,Can you give us some insight on the process you used for creating the language of the novel? It is masterful- on par with Tolkein and Burgess- and my favorite element of The Country of Ice Cream Star. Thanks!
Hi! I have a few questions. Where did your ideas for this novel come from? How much research did it take to implement? What was the most difficult thing about writing this book? Do you feel you have evolved creatively from writing this book? With the unique dialect, how did you handle proofreading? I'd also like to thank you for the opportunity to read The Country of Ice Cream Star and participate in the discussion.
Hi everyone!I'm going to start with the language question (which, as you would imagine, I get a lot) and then answer Tabitha's other questions separately.
I started out writing it in standard English, trying only to imagine the voice of a fifteen-year-old. But, since the book is set 100 years in the future, it kept striking me as unrealistic that she would use contemporary English. I couldn't make anything about it feel real, so I couldn't enter into the book at all.
So I decided, with some trepidation, to invent a future patois for the world I was creating. I found the inspiration for it in African-American English – reasoning that a lot of contemporary slang comes from African-American English, and also that it would be comprehensible to most people. Once I had the basic ideas for the origins of the patois, it came very quickly; I wrote the first page in a half hour. Basically, the language was evolving alongside Ice Cream's voice, and my idea of the Sengle people, and it just all came together.
The language obviously isn't just African-American; it's got a lot of other grammatical elements. I studied languages at university, so I had a lot of latent information about language construction in my head which came in handy. And I was also thinking about how English has changed over time (I was writing a historical guide to Western literature then, so I was reading a lot of Shakespeare and Chaucer, etc., so I was dealing with those changes all the time).
Anyway, when I was writing it, it all came completely naturally. Years later, my agent asked be to write a guide to the language for translators, and I was amazed to find out how many rules I had come up with, without ever consciously thinking about them. It ended up being about six pages long, just describing all the little shifts from standard English. But it was incredibly fun to do, when I was writing the book. The most difficult thing was trying to keep it comprehensible, without breaking with the voice. I spent hours on every page just working on that. And still, of course, it's not necessarily that easy to understand.
So, Tabitha's questions:1. I found it interesting that you depicted adolescents in a way that not only portrayed the best and worst aspects of human nature but also showed them assuming adult roles such as parents, warriors, religious leaders, and so on, and doing so with a great amount of maturity and capability. What were your thoughts as you were writing and deciding how these children were going to rule the planet?
Mainly, I was trying to figure out how they would manage to make everything work, given that they barely live long enough to have children and pass on what they've learned. I mean, I actually have a lot of faith in young people. I teach undergraduates, and I've never really seen a huge difference in the maturity levels of my 19-year-old students and my 40-something contemporaries. I have real problems with the way in which young people are institutionalized nowadays, and not allowed to have any active role in the real world until they're older and older. I think it's bad for everyone.
2. I hated the civilization of the Maria-worshippers as I was reading, for their perversion of the Catholic faith and also b/c they presented this great hindrance to Ice and her quest; it was a real "how is she going to get out of this one??" scenario. Were there any characters or groups of characters in the novel that you really despised as you were writing?I only really despised Deema, the vile Russian soldier. I liked all the other characters. I think in a novel (and even sometimes in life) there's a distinction between people who are fun to be around and people you would trust or assess as good people. I've always had a weakness for awful people who are nonetheless interesting to be around, and I guess the Marianos fall into that category for me.
3. The villainy (and perversion) of Catholicism was really interesting to me. It brought me to mind of all those old Gothic novels that presented monks, nuns, priests, and persons of governmental power with the Catholic faith as menacing or-oftentimes-downright evil. Was that something that you consciously set out to do within this novel, and if so, why did you feel it was important to show that aspect of religion-gone-too-far?Well, the thing is, I didn't really think of them as being villainous. I know it comes across that way, because ultimately their plan is profoundly cynical. But the Marianos we meet are career politicians, who have been thinking about these problems for years, whereas Ice Cream is a young (or relatively young; of course, they're all young) idealist. And, if you pause to think about it, Anselm wasn't all wrong. Ice Cream's solution ends in even worse disaster than the disaster the Marianos were willing to embrace.
I'm not saying their solution is right, because a strategy of "Okay, I'll sacrifice everyone else and save myself" is clearly not one I approve of. But I also find it comprehensible that a group of people would end up resolving to do that, where the other alternatives are so dreadful.
I was aware of tropes about scheming Jesuits and the like when I wrote the book, but really the distorted version of Catholicism just arose organically. In the world of the book, it's just another politicized belief system that people use for their own ends. In any belief system, you get hypocrisy; in any belief system, there will be things that strike an outsider as absurd. I think a lot of, for me, was about how a religion (like any other ideology) inevitably has to transform when it becomes an instrument of power.
4. As I read, I grew to love the special language that Ice and the other characters used. Admittedly, it was a bit of a hindrance initially. Are you at all afraid that the complexity of the novel will deter the average reader?5. Question #4 being said, who do you envision as the target audience for your novel?
I know the complexity of the novel (or the language) deters a lot of readers. But sometimes you just have to write things the way they need to be written.
Happily, though, there are also a lot of people who love poetic language and are willing to deal with the initial difficulty. While I love many books that are written in more accessible, straightforward ways, I think there's room for a lot of variety and even strangeness in the world of books.
Hi, I just want to say this was an extremely interesting book throughout. I would like to thank TNBBC for the opportunity to read it and participate in this discussion, after carefully reading all the comments I don't think I have any additional questions though. Thank you everybody!
Hi, my main question was about how you were able to develop and write in that language, but you answered it, above. I found it hard at first to get into it, because of the language, but I finally "figured" most of it out! It's a very different book, which I probably would not have picked up on my own. This discussion should be very lively! Also, as a Catholic, I found the Catholic aspects interesting.
Thank you for your responses. I appreciated getting to hear your thoughts :0)
Tabitha wrote: "Thank you for your responses. I appreciated getting to hear your thoughts :0)"Thanks, Tabitha!
Mod
Sandra,
As I mentioned above, I really loved the book as a whole. The language was mesmerizing, many of the characters were unforgettable, and their world was unlike anything I'd ever read before.
What I found most intriguing was the way you broke your characters out into very specific social groups - the Sengles were hunter/gatherers; The Christings were godly; The Lowells were industrial/techy; The Nat Mass were military; and Solidad's people were religious nutters. And how these groups came in and out of Ice Cream's life over the course of the book.
I also enjoyed the characters' extreme superstition. Ice Cream's, most of all.
How long did it take you to plot all of those elements... Did you plan it out before writing it all, or did it evolve naturally for you on its own?
Hi Sandra,I just finished the book last night and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I was curious why you chose to incorporate some more sophisticated vocabulary words into the language.
I also have to say I loved how you built Ice Cream's character over time. I fell in love with her from the first pages, and was very taken with her ability to express her emotions, the language was so raw. At times it nearly brought me to tears.
The other aspect of this novel I really liked was her relationship w/Pasha. While this is certainly Ice Cream's story, I felt in some ways it was just as much about how she was the vehicle for Pasha to heal and reconnect with his own humanity in spite of such brutal circumstances. Can you talk about how/why you chose to play out that aspect of the story?
Thanks!
Hi, Sandra! Thanks so much for being here! Everyone's asking really good questions so I'm going to have to think of some better ones haha. But I was curious as I read about what you commented on re language, what other languages influenced it? The aave was very clear and I think I picked up on some Spanish influences in there. I'd love to hear about any other little bits of foreign language you just had to incorporate!
Lori wrote: "Hi Sandra,I just finished the book last night and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I was curious why you chose to incorporate some more sophisticated vocabulary words into the languag..."
Hi Lori… the sophisticated vocabulary words were just realism. I mean, Ice Cream isn't an inarticulate person, and the Sengles aren't really primitive (as kids go) just because they live in a pre-industrial environment. So obviously they'll have fancy words as well as simple ones, and Ice Cream is exactly the person to use them.
As far as Pasha goes, structural, the whole story hinges on her relationship with Pasha. And as I wrote the book, I became increasingly fascinated by him as a character, because whereas Ice Cream and Mamadou are actually proper heroes, who deliberately sacrifice themselves for their people and for the sake of high ideals, Pasha is just a guy. He's like most people in that he's really most concerned with the few people close to him, and the rest of the world can go to hell as long as those people (or that one person) is safe. So that's the underlying drama of the whole story, the clash between those two points of view, which is invisible to Ice Cream throughout; she never suspects that this is a possibility, so she can only interpret Pasha's behavior in terms of "Is he treacherous? Is he on the other side?" Meanwhile, he's not on any side, and he doesn't give a damn about sides.
But all this took a long time for me to figure out. While I was writing the book, I was really not sure about his motives, and it went through several versions before I really figured him out.
Julianne wrote: "Hi, Sandra! Thanks so much for being here! Everyone's asking really good questions so I'm going to have to think of some better ones haha. But I was curious as I read about what you commented on re..."There are a lot of French borrow-words because the Sengles are originally descended from Senegalese immigrants. Apart from that, although this wasn't intentional, some of the grammar comes from Russian, just because I happen to speak Russian, and the logic of that language is deeply embedded in my mind. It actually became a problem as more actual Russians appear in the book, and I had to render their English without making it sound like Sengle English. Then I really discovered how much the grammar of Senglish was sneakily similar to Russian. And there are a few (very few) notes of German in it, which have no justification whatsoever. They just worked at the moment, so I used them. I can't think of any plausible reason that the denizens of the Massa woods would know a single word of German…
Thanks so much for your responses about language development. I also wanted to ask you about audience reception as far as genre goes. Your book is so complex and sophisticated, but your main character is an adolescent. Has your book been been received well by teens and/or readers of young adult fiction? And was something you thought about during the writing process? Thanks again!
Steph wrote: "Thanks so much for your responses about language development. I also wanted to ask you about audience reception as far as genre goes. Your book is so complex and sophisticated, but your main charac..."The honest answer is that I don't really know how it's been received by particular groups. I did think about it during the writing process, and I was reading a lot of YA then because I taught a class in "The Young Adult Novel".
What I ended up thinking was that, if teens liked it, it would be for the same reasons adults liked it, and they would probably like it AS an adult novel. It just doesn't feel like a YA novel to me, although that wasn't deliberate (originally I was trying to write a YA novel, and it just turned into something else). It's kind of hard to say why it isn't a YA novel, though. There are plenty of YA novels that are complex and sophisticated, so it's not that…
Mod
I was hoping you could respond to my comment (#29). I'm really curious to know how the superstitions came to be worked into the storyline as well as the thought process behind creating such structured classes or "tribes" within the book.
Thanks for your comments. I'm really enjoying this discussions.I was wondering if you could shine some light on the world before Ice Cream was born. How did the wars start, was WAKS a biological weapon? How did the US wind up on the losing side?
Lori wrote: "Really great questions so far you guys!Sandra,
As I mentioned above, I really loved the book as a whole. The language was mesmerizing, many of the characters were unforgettable, and their world..."
Sorry for missing this one! I actually just evolved it all as I went along. I had only a very vague idea of what I needed ahead of time, and even that changed dramatically as I went. I always work with an outline, but somehow the resulting novel has very little to do with what was in the outline.
The structured classes/tribes came about just from me trying to think about what kind of economy would actually function in the situation they find themselves in. It probably didn't need to be quite as complex as it was (I often wished I'd only had three groups instead of four in the Massa woods, for instance) but as I was writing it, it kind of organically grew that way.
Lori wrote: "Thanks for your comments. I'm really enjoying this discussions.I was wondering if you could shine some light on the world before Ice Cream was born. How did the wars start, was WAKS a biological ..."
I'm not 100% sure of all these answers (since I write from Ice Cream's point of view, I often don't know any more than she does). I had intended to write a sequel where this all comes out, but I'm still not sure if it's really going to happen. So I'll give you my working assumptions.
WAKS is a Russian biological weapon that was released by mistake. There were various reasons that the US was particularly hard hit, most of them just circumstantial. But the two primary ones are 1) high gun ownership contributing to civil chaos in the wake of the plague, and 2) being a long way away from Africa and Russia, where most of the population survived, and therefore relatively little changed.
The war that Ice Cream ends up in the middle of is actually an oil war where the main combatants are Russia and Europe (roughly the European Union). So it's a superpower conflict that's gradually spread across the world; Russia is trying to gain control of America's coastlines in order to prevent Europe from obtaining its mineral wealth (particularly oil and natural gas) and thus maintaining its economic independence and ability to continue resisting Russian power.
It's a really complicated backstory which would be much more important in book two. But, as I say, I'm not even sure there's going to be a book two…
A book #2 would be fabulous! If you're considering it, that is... :P
I second that book #2 would super interesting. I love your answer to Lori!! Have you thought a lot about what's going on in lots of different places around the world while Ice Cream's story is playing out? Or would it be more of a prequel to cover the backstory if you were to write it?
Tabitha wrote: "A book #2 would be fabulous! If you're considering it, that is... :P"Thanks, Tabitha!
Julianne wrote: "I second that book #2 would super interesting. I love your answer to Lori!! Have you thought a lot about what's going on in lots of different places around the world while Ice Cream's story is play..."I've thought a lot about it, but I always feel like nothing is certain until I've written it and it's actually in the published book. I mean, really I don't just feel that; major sections of the back story have actually changed several times en route to the published book in the past.
If book two happens, it won't be a prequel. But at the beginning, Ice Cream goes to Europe, and ends up involved in the whole geopolitical situation, before coming back to America. So we get to know more or less what's happening everywhere in the world.
Mod
If you were a character in your own novel, which class or tribe would you belong to?
Mod
And an especially big thank you to Sandra for making the time to hang with us and make all of this possible.
Sandra, I am so glad I had the opportunity to share your book with others and am so grateful for all of your insightful responses!
Yes, thank you for your comments, Sara, they have helped me to see and enjoy even more layers of this epic novel, and i continue to recommend it to friends and colleagues.
I enjoyed the book and would like to know how you authors even come up with these ideas? Have you always been a writer and just have tons of ideas/imaginations running around in your head?
I've always been a writer, but I find that as I get older, I have many more ideas for books than I used to, far more than I could ever write. It's hard to say exactly where they come from. I guess partly from life, and partly from looking at other books and thinking, "This is a good book, but it would be so much more interesting if…"
I've always wanted to write, but I can't come up with the ideas! I have very vivid dreams and if I could only remember them to write them down, ha ha. Otherwise, I'm stumped what to write about, and I am a VORACIOUS reader!
Her publisher has given us a total of 10 print copies to give away.
This giveaway is for US residents only (I'm so sorry, international friends! I couldn't secure digital or audio copies this time.)
In order to be considered, you must comment here or on the blog for a shot at winning one and secure a spot in the discussion that kicks off on July 27th:
http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.c...
This giveaway will run through June 8th.
Winners will be announced here and via email (if you provide one) on June 9th.
Here's how to enter:
1 - Leave a comment here or in the giveaway thread over at TNBBC's blog (linked above), stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book - REMEMBER only US residents can win a paper copy this time around.
ONLY COMMENT ONCE. MULTIPLE COMMENTS DO NOT GAIN YOU ADDITIONAL CHANCES TO WIN.
2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from July 27th through August 1st. Sandra has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her.
*If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion right here in this thread next month.
3 - If your goodreads profile is blocked (set on private), please leave me another way to contact you.
GOOD LUCK!!!!