The newest novel from acclaimed storyteller Harry Mark Petrakis, Twilight of the Ice is a dramatic tale of revelation and redemption set against the backdrop of the 1950s Chicago rail yards. In a classic yarn expertly balancing the realistic with the mythic, Petrakis chronicles the life of Mike Zervakis, a Greek immigrant and the last in the line of the strong, skilled railroad car icemen, in a profession becoming obsolete with the advent of modern refrigeration.  

After fleeing from the despotic Turkish occupation of his homeland of Crete, and then escaping from boyhood servitude in his uncles shabby Chicago lunchroom, Mike at last finds his calling in the craft of the ice at the Team Track, the desolate ice depot in the heart of industrial Chicago. Here, under the oppressive rule of brutal foreman Earl, and bolstered by the camaraderie of alcoholic former schoolteacher Rafer Martin, Mike carves out his fate. 

Mikes icing world is populated by a rough crew of old-timers and rookies, including the stoic Polish icemen Budny and Orchowski, the buoyant and reckless Noodles, the brooding war veteran Stamps, and Mikes young helper and surrogate son, Mendoza. This harsh world is also home to Mikes beloved, the prostitute Reba; Rafers temptation incarnate, the fragile Leota; and the old iceman-turned-preacher, Israel, a man plagued with apocalyptic visions of a second ice age in which mankinds salvation would depend upon the chosen icemen.  

Beset by age and a failing body, Mike yearns to find his heir, someone to whom he can pass his skill and his devotion to the craft. After finding only cold indifference among the young summer workers, he finally is introduced to the powerful young giant, S.K., a born iceman. But when S.K. carelessly causes the death of an icing veteran, old hatreds surface and Mikes dream of a successor seems doomed. All that remains for the master iceman is a final savage struggle against his exacting taskmaster, Earl, and an even more relentless foe, the twilight of his own life.

“[D]istinguished Chicago novelist Harry Mark Petrakis is still going strong. His ninth novel and eighteenth book, Twilight of the Ice, is full of the brawny, brightly drawn ethnic characters that brought him international fame for Pericles on 31st Street (1965) and A Dream of Kings (1966), both National Book Award finalists. . . .With his rugged realists eye, Petrakis captures a colorful period and place once well known to Chicagoans but now almost forgotten.”

Chicago Sun-Times

A longtime Chicago resident and the son of a Greek Orthodox priest, Harry Mark Petrakis is the author of sixteen books, including novels, short story collections, memoirs, and collections of essays. Two of his books were finalists for the National Book Award in Fiction. His novel, A Dream of Kings, was made into a major motion picture starring Anthony Quinn. He holds a number of honorary degrees and, in addition to his writing, has lectured extensively as a storyteller at various academic institutions, including Ohio University where he was McGuffy Visiting Lecturer and San Francisco State University where he was Kazantzakis Professor in Modern Greek Studies.