The
Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
is an enjoyable and insightful book. Spanning over seventy
years, from the early 1900s to the late 1980s this novel encompasses
many side stories. The author does this by intertwining the
rise of a woman ice cream mogul with an immigrant’s
story, the twentieth century American Jewish desire to assimilate,
women’s rights issues, poverty, world wars, McCarthyism,
the youth movement of the sixties, Reagan’s trickle-down
economics, and the overreach of government.
Gilman thinks it is very important to show how women struggled
through the decades. “I wanted to expand on the way
women are portrayed in our culture. That is why I put the
scene in where a male businessman tells Lillian, ‘I
don’t do business with women.’ I don’t see
a lot of women anti-heroes in literature. If you noticed,
this is a story of “Beauty and The Beast” in reverse,
since she has a gorgeous husband. She became the brains and
he the brawns. I also included the age issue for women: our
American culture punishes women for not staying young.”
The plot is a page-turner and perfectly informative from the
beginning. Trying to escape the Pogroms, young Malka’s
parents immigrate to New York City. After being crippled by
an ice cream cart she is abandoned by her own family, but
manages to survive after being taken in by the family who
caused the accident. She survives through her wit and cunningness,
and learns the secrets of the trade from her rescuers, an
Italian family. After falling in love and eventually marrying
a handsome, dyslexic Jewish man, Albert, she transforms herself
from a crippled dependent girl to Lillian Dunkle, the ice
cream queen tycoon.
Susan Jane Gilman commented on her research for the book,
“I called the Carvel Corporation who put me in touch
with one of the oldest stores over in Long Island. The owner,
Mr. Gizagidze, told me all the ins and outs of the ice cream
business. I met all the people who worked there and even worked
behind the counter, although they did keep me away from the
ice cream. I think they knew I had an ulterior motive: I could
have opened my mouth under the spigot and poured ice cream
down it. I also went to Gelato University in Bellona. I took
a Gelato ice cream making class there. I learned from making
it that the sweetness of ice cream is the product of science,
mathematics, and chemistry.”
Readers are able to also get a glimpse of the historical issues,
many times with humor and wit. During the scenes when Malka
stays with the Italian family the author skillfully shows
the similarities and differences between the Jewish and Italian
immigrants. Other scenes show that even during earlier decades
government bureaucracy was at its worst. Through Lillian’s
eyes the author points out, “Oh the rigmorale she had
to go through. Tax returns and even a psychological evaluation.
What will they ask for next? A blood sample? Today, if one
of our franchises wants to hire a sixteen-year-old to scoop
ice cream for a summer, the management is required to provide
more information than my entire family was asked to supply
at Ellis Island.”
Lillian is a complex character with two sides. At times readers
will root for and love her while at other times she’ll
be seen as despicable and amoral. She can be driven, bitter,
and rude while also being bold, loyal, and highly intelligent.
This two-sided personality allows the reader to see that a
businesswoman who has to develop a thick side can also be
seen as a motherly figure. She was both compelling and sympathetic.
The author noted she created “Lillian as a modern female
anti-hero who is a combination of Scarlett O’ Hara and
Leona Helmsley. She is a businesswoman who sells ice cream
to the public in the guise of a motherly figure. But she also
is mean-spirited, difficult, and manipulative. She has a lot
of chutzpah. I would not want to work for her or be around
her. Yet, I did love her and her personality. She is very
animated, curious, and whip smart. She is fiercely protective
of what she created and the people she loves. I wanted to
create a character that is in certain ways is very unlikable
and in other ways is very loveable. I think that most humans
have two sides. I hope readers find her complicated, exasperating,
interesting, and funny. She had everything go against her
early on, she is orphaned, disabled, Jewish, poor, an immigrant,
a female, yet she is able to overcome all these obstacles
to become very successful.”
Incredibly, Gilman is able to weave together American history,
the Jewish experience, and ice cream. Throughout the book
there are Yiddish terms used by the characters to convey their
emotions. With New York City looming in the background, the
reader will learn everything about the ice cream business
and how it was affected by important issues of the day, including
the threat of new franchises like McDonald’s that incorporated
ice cream in their menu choices.
Anyone that wants a captivating story with a lot of humor,
sensitivity, and Jewish wit should read The Ice Cream
Queen of Orchard Street. Readers will be taken on a journey
through the decades with Lillian Dunkle, the celebrated matriarch
of the ice cream business, as she recounts her life from penniless
immigrant to food tycoon
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