Ice and Fire

The novel is a first person narrative and has strong (but limited) autobiographical elements; there are significant areas of difference with Dworkin’s life. The childhood described is very similar to Dworkin’s; an adored father and a mother who was unwell for years. The narrator was brought up in a Jewish neighbourhood and describes the strict divisions between neighbourhoods and the changing nature of childhood games. The tone of the novel changes abruptly as it switches to adulthood with the narrator living with a girlfriend in New York’s Lower East Side. Both women are regular drug users; they earn money in a variety of ways, but mainly by selling themselves, to men and women. The men around them are predatory and they are beaten and raped at various times. The descriptions are bleak and often brutal. The descriptions of the surroundings in this novel are remarkably good and Dworkin does have a good descriptive mode; especially when describing squalor and bad food. The narrator also spends time in Europe (paralleling Dworkin’s time in The Netherlands). She writes and seems to start to find her voice, and meets and marries a man who is impotent. As he finds his confidence through her he becomes increasingly abusive and violent and she is seriously hurt. She manages to get back to the States and lives alone (we won’t mention the rats) in an apartment in the Lower East Side, where she writes. The end of the novel revolves around struggles to get published. It could not be described as an upbeat novel and a number of reviewers have focussed on the abuse and violence, missing inner meanings. I sat back at one point and the light suddenly came on (It took a while!) and realised what was going on.