Who can resist a story about ice cream? I signed up for this book because of the title. I love ice cream and I was curious what story do ice cream makers tell.

There is a contention that ice cream did not originate from Italy. There is a claim that it actually came from China. But Giuseppe Talamini would absolutely oppose that. He thinks that Marco Polo did not actually go to China and brought ice cream making as one of the discoveries from the east with him. Giuseppe believes that his grandfather discovered ice cream. Ice-cream making is his way of life and the business will pass on to his sons and his sons' future sons.

This is a story about a family whose business and way of life is centered upon making delicious and creamy delights of multi-flavored ice cream. Yum! As it appears, ice-cream making is not as sweet as the concoction. It requires back-breaking dedication and a skill for turning fruits and flavors into heady and addicting combinations that will keep the customers coming back for more. As it turned out, not all ice-cream makers want to be ice-cream makers. Like in this story, Giuseppe, had no choice but to follow in his father's footsteps and take over the family business. He wanted to be an inventor. Someone who can create things. He is fond of tinkering and just making things, even if they do not have any specific purpose. But he has to forgo that dream and had to continue the family legacy of churning ice and fruits into mouth-watering gelato. And like Giuseppe, his first-born did not also want to be an ice-cream maker. Giovanni wants to be a poet and he became one, even to the cost of being estranged from the family. The second son, Luca, like his father was also forced to take over the family business because there is no one else. Luca's son is more curious on poetry rather than ice-cream making. Does ice-cream making and the business of the Talamini's end with Luca?

I think the story is very realistic. Even though it centers on ice-cream, the dilemma of who's going to takeover the family business passed down through generations is also a question for some of the businesses today. It explores the reality between following one's dream or to get trapped in continuing the family legacy. I definitely could not relate to this since we do not have any family business but a similar question had been asked of me. When I was younger, whenever I was asked what would I like to be, my answer was always something else other than being a teacher. In our family, on my mother's side, the women are all teachers, even some men are teachers and the rest of the men are all seamen (marine engineers, nautical people like captains). Only a few deviate from these professions mentioned above. It was like a default that you too should be a teacher but I did not want to be one. I wanted to be different. In some way, this is like in the story but I think it was easier for me to not follow the rest of my relatives compared to Giovanni or Luca. With my choice, no one is adversely affected. There is no family legacy that is going to be lost or a source of income or business that is going to close up. Giovanni and Luca's dilemma is more serious than mine. And if I were in the Talamini brothers' shoes, I would definitely think a million times before deciding not to continue with being an ice-cream maker and pursue my own dream. The decision weighs a lot because it does not only mean letting down your family but also losing what has been built by sweat and blood by your ancestors, if no one else is going to takeover the business. And what about what I want? This was exactly what Giovanni had to go through. In the end, he followed his heart. But it did not mean that he was not assaulted by guilt every time he sees his brother and father. His heart bleeds every time. If only he can be both at the same time. So, I can totally understand why he can't seem to say no to his brother when he ask him a very special favor and not just once. It felt like it was his way of making up for his choice.

I give the book 3/5 cones of ice cream. It was a good enough story but I think it was too long. There were parts that just rumbled on that were not so essential. Though throughout the book, the feeling of melancholy is very evident. You will feel the hardship and the labors suffered by Giuseppe, Giovanni and Luca churning and churning ice cream. It felt like your hands had calloused too just by witnessing Luca experimenting with new flavors of ice cream. The emotions in the story are very strong, it's probably the reason why the author kept the story on and on and can't decide when he has to end it. I understood that the feelings invoked by the story are hard to let go. You want to basked in it yet you know you will get tired of it. Yes, you will think this is a sweet story as delicious as ice cream but it is far from it. In fact, it is full of bitterness and regrets. And Giovanni, he may have followed what he wanted and is doing what he loves--writing and working for poetry, but he is far from happy. This story is an example that we can't have everything we want but we make do and sometimes we pretend that we are happy doing these things, though we are just painstakingly and hardly getting by.


You can make them come back, the years and the people. But I doubt if the miracle will repeat itself.
- Ernest van der Kwast, The Ice-cream Makers -


Thank you again, Netgalley for the copy.

The Ice-Cream Makers by Ernest Van der Kwast
Atria (37INK), 2017
Fiction; 288 pgs
Source: E-copy provided by publisher via NetGalley

Poetry and ice cream: two of my favorite things. I ended up highlighting quite a few quotes in my copy of The Ice-Cream Makers, particularly about poetry. Giovanni Talamini* discovered his love for poetry during his teen years. Much to his father's consternation, Giovanni wanted nothing to do with the family business, a long held tradition his great-grandfather had started in following his own dream. Giovanni's dream, however, took him in a different direction, and it caused a big rift in his relationship with his family.

Giovanni constantly questions his decision in life, giving up tradition to travel and follow his passion. When his brother, married to the girl both he and his brother had a childhood crush on, asks him for a life-changing favor, Giovanni has a difficult decision to make. It also makes him realize just how much he sacrificed in following his dreams.

As Giovanni recounts his and his family's story, the narrative takes readers back and forth between past and present. He introduces us to his great-grandfather who worked hard alongside his own father and would eventually discover a love for making ice cream. Guiseppe spent hours perfecting the perfect ice cream, getting the texture and taste just right. He experimented with different flavors and impressed those around him with his skills. It was a legacy he would pass down to his own son who would then pass the family business onto his son.

When Giovanni decided to go down his own path, he left behind his younger brother who seemed to take pride in making ice cream. It never crossed his mind his brother might have had other aspirations. As it was, Giovanni's father's heart seemed divided between the family business and his love for invention.

The Ice-Cream Makers got off to a slow start for me, but I eventually settled into the rhythm of the narrative and was caught up in the story and in the lives of the Talamini's. I think most of us as adults know the struggle between obligation and following our dreams, especially as we get older and have families to support.

I was raised by a hardworking father who believed in doing whatever it took to put food on the table. He was the kind of guy who would put up with a job he didn't care for if it meant bringing financial stability to his family. There was no family business to carry on, but if there had been, I imagine he and Giovanni's father would share similar views. I admire their steadfastness and their strong work ethic.

That isn't to say Giovanni isn't hardworking--he is. Just not in the way his father and brother view it. They work with their hands and labor for hours at a time. It is a different type of work, but not less valuable to those they service. Giovanni knew he wouldn't be happy making ice cream all his life, and so he decided to follow his own dreams, something which I think takes a lot of courage.

The bigger the divide between Giovanni and his father and brother became, I longed for them to see themselves in each other: to recognize the art and poetry in ice-cream making and the hard work and sacrifice that went into the work Giovanni did.

I enjoyed my time spent in Italy and the Netherlands; Ernest van der Kwast brings it all to mind so vividly. I found the various stories about how ice cream came into being and how it was transported and sold fascinating. Flavors I never imagined were mentioned, some more appealing than others, but I longed to be the one able to taste test their creations.

The references to poets and poetry won me over as well. I could relate to Giovanni's love for poetry and just how much it moved him. To be able to travel the world like he does--I can only imagine!

I was quite moved by The Ice-Cream Makers in the end. I think this would make a great book club pick, whether to discuss legacy versus desire, family ties and conflict, or the consequences of the choices we make.

*My copy of the book (which I cross checked with Amazon's sample and the one on the author's website to verify as the name used in the novel) used the surname "Talamini," but the description on Goodreads, Amazon, and the publisher's site use "Calamine."

This is the story of the Calamine family's ice cream parlor and their son Giovanni who decides to break tradition and become a poet. As the oldest son it would be customary for him to take over the ice cream shop when he became an adult, but he did not want to be like the rest. He dared to not desire to be an ice cream maker all of his days.

He watched his father tole 9 months out of the year making ice cream 16 to 18 hours a day. He spent his childhood at a private school where he was abused by the nuns because his parents didn't have time to raise children and run an ice cream shop. This was the plight of generations of Giovanni's family.

"Such was the fate of the children of ice-cream makers. As a baby, toddler, and preschooler you get to join your parents at the ice-cream parlor every season, but after that you have to go to school. In Italy. The advantage was that you got to spend the winter at home and the long summer holidays - three months, in Italy - in the Netherlands. The disadvantage was that you spent the rest of the time in a boarding school run by nuns."
As a teenager he spent his summers bent over a freezer scooping ice cream for hundreds of customers. He dreaded sunny days because they meant more customers and more work. He dreamed of being out in the sunshine like everyone else.

One summer a local poet began frequenting the ice cream shop. Giovanni quickly befriended the poet and was given books of poetry. He was able to catch a glimpse of the world outside of the ice cream parlor. Soon Giovanni could think of nothing more than a way out of ice-cream and into the world of poetry.

"Fortune favors the bold. And rejects the fearful." Those were the words of the most illustrious of Roman poets. But later that evening in the ice cream parlor, I didn't have the guts to tell my family that after the summer I would be embarking on an English literature degree in Amsterdam. I felt as if I was betraying them all - my father; my brother, Luca; and my mother, who held the spatula in her hand until midnight. She was always hunched over the ice like a farm laborer over potatoes."
Giovanni and his brother Luca were very close growing up. Giovanni choosing to pursue a degree in English literature and leave the ice cream parlor meant that Luca was the next in line to inherit the family ice cream shop and all the responsibilities that went along with that. Luca took on the 18 hour days, but not without a bitterness that ran so deep it caused a rift in the brothers relationship.

"'Churn, churn, churn,' Luca said. As my father had put it to us: we had to learn, the ice-cream machines had to churn."
As the years go on Giovanni and Luca drift further and further apart. Giovanni's world is one that his family can't and won't understand. Giovanni is constantly off to a poetry festival or to meet some new poet. His family spends 9 months at the ice cream shop and 3 months at home. This same routine goes on every single year without any change. They are like the ice-cream machine constantly churning in the same motion.

"Our lives had become too different. I read, I wrote, I edited. I had meetings, ate baguettes and brie with poets, and attended book launches. He worked sixteen hours a day, churning ice cream, selling it, cleaning the machines, and then sleeping like a log at night. The ice-cream parlor was his whole world; mine began where it ended."
This book spans generations of a family that made ice-cream their life. The book reminds me of The House of Wind by Titania Hardie. It is a heavy read about what it's like to choose something new and the fall-out that can cause.

I read 1/3 of this before setting it aside. It didn't hold my interest.