Holidays on Ice
1997
- american christmas stories
- american humorous stories
- christmas stories, american
- family
- fiction
- humor (nonfiction)
- humorous stories, american
- nonfiction
- families
- short stories
The story
A collection of Christmas stories. The story Dinah, the Christmas Whore, describes the reaction of a family when a daughter brings home a prostitute, while SantaLand Diaries is on a department store elf.
What it’s like
Dry, deadpan first-person voice carrying a string of short, self-contained stories, each one a small domestic or seasonal disaster told with precise, conversational wit. The sensory world is ordinary and overheated: crowded department store aisles blinking with tinsel, cramped family kitchens during the holidays, bright fluorescent retail floors, and the sticky, overfull texture of a houseful of relatives at Christmas. Sentences are brisk and plainspoken, with sharp comic timing and the occasional sudden turn into tenderness or embarrassment. The mood is wry and bittersweet rather than cozy, the kind of read that suits a noisy December evening, a long train ride, or a sly antidote to sentimental seasonal fare. Crude language, sexual references and frank talk about prostitution appear in places, and the humor is sardonic rather than violent; there is little gore or physical danger. It is for readers who enjoy observational, self-deprecating humor and family dysfunction, and who want their holiday reading to be honest and mordant instead of sweet.
More books like Holidays on Ice
Closest in mood, pacing and theme. Tell us why you loved Holidays on Iceand we’ll explain which ones fit you.
