Ice

 Louis Nowra

2008, 9781741754834

Present from Bruno I think, from years ago.

Started off well I thought with the background to Malcolm McEachern and Andrew McIlwraith, two Scotsmen who had met in London, both interested in engineering and resolving technical problems. They decided to make their fortunes by towing a very large iceberg to Sydney in the late 1880s.

Interesting description of scenes in Sydney and the Antarctic.

 The novel follows these two men through their lives and keeps a running theme of 'ice' and then present day begins to emerge where another voice appears whose partner has gone into a coma thanks to an ice addict and the lives of these two would seem to mirror that of Malcom and his wife.

I thought the second half of the book fell away badly and became rather tortuous trying to tie in the ice thread and Malcolm's descent into semi-madness was rather strange.
Interesting concepts but didn't quite all click into place.

It was nominated for the Miles Franklin, but Tim Winton's Breath won.