It is the fall of 1952. The Yankees and the Dodgers are playing in the World Series. Although Gen. Douglas MacArthur has said “Good Bye” and faded away on television, the Korean War goes on. Dwight D. Eisenhower is about to be sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. And Henry Loos is preparing to harvest his ice for the last time.  

Henry describes himself as a man who has “built his house on ice,” and The Ice Harvest follows the aging iceman’s last year as he faces his obsolescence while following out the ice harvesting season—an ironic reversal of the agricultural cycle of the farmers in the close-knit southwestern Minnesota community where he lives. As Henry finds himself “fading away,” he is accompanied on his journey by his disaffected middle-aged son Ed and his preteen granddaughter Margaret. The narrative is shared by these three characters, each trying to define themselves and their place in a changing world.

The tone and the rhythms of The Ice Harvest are those of everyday life—not the big dramas of the world stage but just as important to Henry, Ed, Margaret and the others who make up this story of family, faith, work, love and loss.

"I can remember my mother, Carolyn See, speaking with much admiration about Sharon Locy’s The Ice Harvest. Having now read it, I understand her devotion. The Ice Harvest explores the intersections of family and faith set against the beautiful, but sometimes cruel, landscape of Minnesota. Locy has beautifully captured that moment when modernity with all its benefits (electricity! refrigerators!) overtakes the final moments of our American pioneer experience."--Lisa See, New York Times bestselling author

Sharon Locy was born and raised in southwestern Minnesota. She received a B.A. in English at the College of St. Teresa, Winona, MN, and a Ph.D. in English (19th-Century British Literature) at the University of California, Davis. She taught literature and writing at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, for thirty-five years. She has published articles on Flannery O’Connor, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, Sandra Cisneros, among others. Ice Harvest is her first novel. She lives in Santa Monica, CA.