The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street

Starred review from March 31, 2014
Nonfiction writer Gilman (Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven) parlays her craft into an outstanding fiction debut, which follows an abrasive, unscrupulous protagonist from the 1910s to the early 1980s. In 1913, within months of arriving in New York City from her native Russia, young Malka Bialystoker is injured by a horse belonging to street vendor Salvatore Dinello. Deserted by her unstable mother and shiftless father, Malka is taken in by the Dinello clan out of a sense of guilt. Coping with a now-deformed right leg, she sheds her Jewish heritage in favor of her adoptive family’s Italian ethnic identity, complete with a new name: Lillian Maria Dinello. The Dinellos never fully accept her, however, and after she has reached early adulthood, they pointedly exclude her from their fledgling ice cream business. In retaliation she, along with her new husband, Albert Dunkle, begins a rival company. Lillian, a ruthless, hard-drinking businesswoman behind closed doors, in public provides a friendly, wholesome face for the increasingly successful Dunkle’s Famous Ice Cream. Gilman’s numerous strengths are showcased, such as character-driven narrative, a ready sense of wit, and a rich historical canvas, in this case based on the unlikely subject of the 20th-century American ice cream industry. Agent: Irene Skolnick, Irene Skolnick Literary Agency.

April 15, 2014
As a child, Malka Treynovsky unwittingly helps her father dupe her mother about their destination when they flee the Russian pogroms for America, thus starting a life of deception that would become second nature. After her father abandons the family and her mother loses her mind, Malka is hideously crippled in a bizarre accident. In a scene straight out of Dickens, the orphaned invalid is adopted by an ambitious Italian ice-cream vendor who renames her Lillian and transforms her into the image of a dutiful Catholic daughter. When she falls in love with the movie-star-handsome Jewish immigrant Albert Dunkle, Lillian is cast out of the family, but not before learning everything about the ice-cream business. As she and Bert build an empire that catapults them, Forrest Gumplike, into the twentieth century's biggest events, Lillian assumes the self-proclaimed role of America's Ice Cream Queen and vows to do whatever it takes to survive. Travel memoirist Gilman (Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, 2009) presents an ambitious and lavish immigrant rags-to-riches-to-rags first novel rife with humor and moxie.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014

After fleeing Russia in 1913 for Manhattan's dismal Lower East Side, 13-year-old Malka Treynovsky is abandoned by her family and eventually sets off across America in an ice cream truck. A debut novel from the author of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress; with a 75,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014

At the heart of memoirist Gilman's (Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress; Kiss My Tiara) first novel is ice cream entrepreneur Lillian Dunkle, a fascinating character who, like American businesswoman Leona Helmsley, believes that "only the little people pay taxes." At 75, Lillian is bravely facing federal tax evasion charges. The press and the public perceive this as a case of Lillian getting her just desserts, but as the narrative backtracks to her early life, readers learn that Lillian has not always been so rich or felt so entitled. The youngest of four daughters in a poor Russian Jewish family, she is born Malka Treynovsky and touches down on New York City's Lower East Side as a child in the early 20th century. Run over by a horse cart and permanently crippled within three months of her arrival, she is quickly abandoned. When the kindly Italian ices peddler who ran her over takes her in, Malka learns self-reliance. Through grit, wits, and some luck, she builds a prosperous life for herself and her family. VERDICT With its vivid depictions of old New York City tenement life and its tale of the American ice cream business set against the backdrop of the major events of the 20th century, this rags-to-riches saga will appeal greatly to readers of American historical novels. [See Prepub Alert, 12/16/13.]--Sheila M. Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.