A
novel by
Rick Moody published in
April of
1994 and
adapted to film by
director Ang Lee.
The
setting is
suburbia,
1973, during
Nixon's
Watergate hearings. The
nation is in a
state of
adolescence, new ways
challenging old
traditions. This
fugue is
reflected in 2
families who are going through their own adolescences. The adults,
innocently
experimenting with
swinging,
drugs and alcohol,
behave like adolescents. The adolescents
mirror their parents'
behavior through
sexual experimentation,
drugs and alcohol, and so forth.
The story climaxes with a major ice storm where discoveries are made about themselves and a tragic
death that brings them all
together.