Imagine the U.S. as a cultural hegemony in which nobody survives beyond adolescence and where religion and social Darwinism dictate public policy. In The Country of Ice Cream Star, Sandra Newman has created such a world, painting a bold, linguistically adventurous dystopia of a black, Christian America.
At the center of the novel is Ice Cream Fifteen Star, a 15-year-old girl who lives in the Massa woods of the Nighted States and travels with a nomadic, scavenging tribe of children known as the Sengles. They are ruled by Driver Eighteen Star, Ice Cream's older brother. During a scavenging trip in an abandoned "Sleeper" town, they encounter and capture a Russian soldier named Pasha Roo, the first white man they have ever encountered. Driver develops signs of the plague-like infection called the "Posies," the same epidemic that has obliterated the white race and kills others before they reach the age of 20. Ice Cream realizes that the 30-something Pasha has survived beyond adolescence and entertains hopes of finding a cure. With Pasha's cooperation, Ice Cream fights to protect her people and the neighboring bands against the raping and pillaging Nat Mass Armies. She also wrestles with her role as the redeemer "Maria" in Marias City (the former New York City) after being kidnapped and forced into the part by a rival group bent on using their vision of Catholicism for political gain. Ultimately, Ice Cream must find a way to unite the disparate factions while negotiating the struggles of her own love life to survive against the encroaching Russian Federation.
The Country of Ice Cream Star is a singular work of storytelling that manages to be historically and politically compelling in its view of a future haunted by disease and death. Yet Newman manages to imbue her heroine with a hope and resiliency that will surpass the ravages of a woebegone time. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant