The Emperor of Ice-Cream is a 1965 coming-of-age novel[1] by writer Brian Moore. Set in Belfast during the Second World War, it tells the story of 17-year-old Gavin Burke who, admitting "war was freedom, freedom from futures", defies his nationalist and Catholic family by volunteering as an air raid warden with the largely Protestant ARP.[1] The novel follows Gavin's journey as he realises that there are those on the other side of the city's bitter communal division whose friendships offer a wider horizon.
Based in part on Moore's own wartime experiences,[2][3] he described it as the most autobiographical of his novels.[2] Moore left Belfast in 1943 to join the British Ministry of War Transport and worked himself for a period with the ARP in London.
The book is dedicated, as were all of Moore's subsequent novels, to his partner Jean,[4] who became his second wife two years after its publication. Its title is taken from Wallace Stevens' poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream".
The book was dramatised by the Northern Irish actor, playwright and theatre director Bill Morrison; the play was performed at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1977.[5]
References
^ abHicks, Patrick (July–December 1999). "History and Masculinity in Brian Moore's 'The Emperor of Ice-Cream'". The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies. 25 (1/2): 400–413. doi:10.2307/25515283. JSTOR25515283.
