Ice Haven

Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ice Haven tells the story of the disappearance of David Goldberg and how it impacts the small town of Ice Haven, told in loosely connected comic strips.

I'm a Daniel Clowes fan and my wife bought this for me for Christmas at the last minute after discovering she'd bought me a book I already have.

So who kidnapped David Goldberg and is he still alive? That's what the people of Ice Haven want to know. Or at least they enjoy talking about it. The individual stories are mostly slice of life tales with the kidnapping of David Goldberg mentioned or simply lurking in the periphery. There are a couple poets, an art critic, a boy in love with his stepsister, a girl in a long distance relationship, and a husband and wife detective team whose marriage may or may not be circling the drain.

A book about the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping is used as a plot device of sorts, partly because of the kidnapping that drives the book and partly because Clowes grew up not far from the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping. The fate of David Goldberg comes out of nowhere, making me want to reread the book in the future to look for clues.

Ice Haven is charming, strange book, like most of Clowes' work. Four out of five stars.

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