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Have you ever been going about your daily business and had something happen that at the time seems inconsequential but subsequently turns out to be of great import, even life changing? That's what happens to Meg Gardner. Originally from Missoula, Montana, Meg screwed up and ended up in jail in New Mexico for petty criminal activities. On returning home, she's lucky to get a job where her background doesn't matter. She repossesses cars. And in the course of repossessing a Jeep owned by a guy named Clayton Bennett, she sees his body being retrieved from a ditch by the police. A native American by the name of Tina Red Deer is somehow implicated; this sets off little alarms in Meg's heads because she recalls an incident involving a "Red Deer" family from her childhood. Thinking that it's best to take the Jeep before things get too complicated, she drives the vehicle home. It's only then that she finds a briefcase in the back seat. And everyone in the world is interested in the contents of that briefcase. Before she even gets to open it, she is robbed of it and subsequently threatened by a second person who wants it as well. And that's how Meg becomes involved in a situation that offers her nothing but reclamation of her life and maybe someone that she cares about in her own damaged way. So Meg begins to try to find out about Bennett's death. She gets involved with some Russian crooks, a scary tattooed knife-wielding woman and a hunt for an airplane that crashed 40 years ago. "Iced" is an apt name for the book because of the 2 meanings of the word: one being the slang for being killed and the other relating to the weather. The sub-arctic setting is depicted on such a way that your knees will knock and you'll be grabbing for a sweater. Siler has an extraordinary writing style, very descriptive and nuanced, almost literary and poetic in a noir kind of way. It's as if Siler were creating a written Oriental carpetăbeautiful, deeply textured, intricate and complex. On the other hand, however, the preponderance of descriptive passages sometimes slows down the narrative and has a negative impact on the book's pacing. Meg is a damaged character, made so by a combination of bad genes and events within her family that have an impact to the present day. Her mother shot her father. He lived but is more or less a vegetable. And although she seems to be his caretaker, the truth is that she's really more his cruel jailer. These events have served to make Meg someone who cannot commit to a relationship, in spite of the fact that she is involved with someone who cares about her deeply. The writing may be gorgeous but what holds the reader in this book is the flawed character of Meg. In spite of her imperfections, she's an honest person and someone the reader roots. Siler is a fine writer, although the plot is not an exceptional one and didn't quite come together for me. However, I do recommend this book for its wonderfully rendered characterization, prose and setting and its dark overtones.
Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, July 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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