An Ice-Cream War: A Novel

This book could be subtitled "When Terrible Things Happen to Essentially Good People". It tells the story of two brothers, Felix and Gabriel Cobb; Charis, Gabriel's wife; Walter Smith, an American plantation owner in British East Africa; Colonel Von Bishop, Walter's neighbor, nemesis, and colonel in the German army; and Liesl Von Bishop, the colonel's bored and lonely wife. The War brings these people together from the far corners of the Earth and forces them into an interaction with tragic consequences.

The characters are never short of involving. The plot clips along at a breathless pace and there are at least two or three set pieces that are staggering examples of narrative brilliance. One of the author's greatest triumphs here is his ability to capture the environment and pervading atmosphere of sub-Saharan Africa during the War. When he speaks of swarms of black flies hovering over and resting on a corpse baking in the desert sun, the reader really feels it. The author is equally successful at capturing the aristocratic tone and manner of an English country house as well as a seedy, bohemian nightclub in London.

There is hope at the end, but a dubious kind of hope. There is the possibility for renewal but not necessarily redemption.

Boyd's images will linger long after the reader has turned the final page, haunting and insistent.


Excellent Historical Novel set in World War I Africa   August 20, 2000
Ed Gibbon www.congocookbook.com
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

"An Ice-Cream War" is the story of American, German, and British lives in Eastern Africa turned upside down by World War I. European and American settlers in Eastern Africa, once friendly neighbors, reluctantly turned to enemies. World War I battles in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the history of pre-WWI German colonization in Africa (more-or-less present day Rwanda, Burundi, and mainland Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, and Namibia), are today mostly forgotten. The background of the novel is the amazing success of German lieutenant colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck (not much portrayed in the story), who commanded Germany's tiny, undersupplied African force (mostly African soldiers). He inflicted embarrassing losses on British forces at Tanga, and tied down Allied forces that outnumbered his own by at least 10 to 1 for the duration of the war. Against this fascinating and little-known history, "An Ice-Cream War" is an engaging novel of war, love, and revenge.

Boyd's comedy of diplomacy in Africa "A Good Man in Africa" is also recommended.


One GREAT novel that will deeply move all who read it.   August 2, 2007
Shawn S. Sullivan (USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful


An Ice Cream War, by William Boyd, is a wonderfully crafted novel. Boyd really soars as a writer, not only in his stylish and artful prose, but also in a story line that would, with many authors, be too much to write on without the inevitable choppiness that plot can create. Boyd is an author many, I here-to-for included, don't know. That should change for justice to be done for this gifted writer. An Ice Cream War, originally published some twenty four years ago, is a must read for both those who love rather old fashioned novels, with real and raw human emotion, and those who simply derive pleasure from the beauty of the written word. Boyd is going right up there with Norris, Stegner, Oates and Wharton (among others) that I think are absolute must reads. Treat yourself to some real art - read this novel.



a fun read   June 12, 2005
Peter L. Kraus (Salt Lake City, Utah USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

A wonderful work on the absurdities of war at home and abroad.

A classic piece of historical fiction.



First-rate historical fiction   April 3, 2009
R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

"An ice-cream war" was what a British soldier confidently predicted would be the extension of World War I to the colonial outposts of German and British East Africa. But the British badly bungled their invasion of German East Africa in November 1914, and the war in Africa, just as the war in Europe, ended up being far different than the glorious enterprise envisioned in the summer of 1914. In AN ICE-CREAM WAR, which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 1982, William Boyd tells the story of this satellite war, primarily through the experiences of two English brothers of relative privilege and affluence, Felix and Gabriel Cobb. Other principal characters are an American who has taken up farming in British East Africa, near the border with the German colony, and, from across the river, his German neighbor and his wife. The novel begins in June 1914, before the war erupts, and scenes shift back and forth between East Africa and England until, at the end, the principal characters have all come together in East Africa and the war is over, with some of them dead.

AN ICE-CREAM WAR is first-rate historical fiction, so much so that perhaps I should drop the vaguely limiting adjective "historical". In addition to the story itself, which has plenty of twists and turns, there are the deeper themes of the horrors and absurdities of war -- and, of life itself.

Example: "Gabriel thought maps should be banned. They gave the world an order and reasonableness which it didn't possess. * * * Nothing today had been remotely how he had imagined it would be; nothing in his education or training had prepared him for the utter randomness and total contingency of events. Here he was, strolling about the battlefield looking for his missing company like a mother searching for lost children in the park."

And the novel underscores that the human cost of war is not limited to the soldiers who are killed in battle or die behind the lines, from wounds, or disease, or accident. There also is the "collateral damage" to civilians, which is both physical and psychological, which occurs both at the front in Africa and back home in Kent, England.

William Boyd manages his rather sprawling story very ably, and his writing is excellent, always in service of his narrative and never calling attention to itself. My only criticism is that several of the characters are not wholly convincing to my mind. Still, this is a fine novel. I recently read (and reviewed) "Land of Marvels", by Barry Unsworth. There are certain superficial similarities between it and AN ICE-CREAM WAR: both are historical fiction, both begin in 1914, and the plots of both are driven by the collision between the expanding imperialism of Britain and Germany. Many Amazon reviewers have raved about "Land of Marvels". But AN ICE-CREAM WAR is much superior. It is not quite as good as "Restless", the only other novel by William Boyd that I have read, but both are popular fiction that might arguably be elevated to the status of literature. I will definitely read more of Boyd (God willing).