Customer Reviews

On Ice

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Just once in a blue moon does an author come along who has the ability to make you care deeply. Not only does Red Evans take you along for a hilarious and heartwarming ride down to Louisiana to bury a loved one in ON ICE, he does it in a way that will leave you forever changed -- better for it somehow. Evans' main character, the young Eldridge Brewer, had me in the palm of his hand from the first time he watched a chicken lay an egg. His motives and sense of wonder are pure.

In ON ICE, all is innocent again. Everything matters. I suspect the world may rarely have another author like Red Evans who can grab right through your chest and touch whatever matters to you most. I highly recommend ON ICE if you want to feel alive again and remember the faith you had as a little child. Red Evans' On ICE makes the beauty of this world a tangible thing.

Booklist reviewer said this about On Ice:
Part road novel and part cornpone comedy, this appealing story follows 12-year-old Eldridge Brewer,
legendary banjo player Felton Haliday, and a farting dog named Whistler as they make their way south in a
1959 Studebaker truck. They carry with them the corpse (preserved in a kiddie pool full of ice) of fiddle
player Tyrane Percival, Felton's former band mate, whose dying wish was to be buried next to his one true
love. Dodging a nosy sheriff and a gang of scraggly, mean-spirited bikers, Eldridge and Felton bond over
music, tall tales, and their increasingly hilarious attempts to control their flatulent dog. After a series of
misadventures involving a hot-air balloon, an Indian chief, and an eccentric suit salesman, the two finally
bring Tyrane to his final resting place. Evans' humor is broad but infectious, and his dialogue is tinged
with a southern twang and chock-full of colorful expressions. Like novelist Clyde Edgerton (who also has
a soft spot for ornery pets), Evans uses offbeat humor to both entertain and move his readers.
-- Joanne Wilkinson

Red Evans has created a picaresque tale full of wit, charm, and heart.
With Southern humor and escapism at its best, On Ice keeps the adventures coming and the corpse fresh (in a kiddie pool full of ice)--though nothing can mask the scent of the young hero's flatulent dog. A Delightful Read from Red!

Move over Holden Caulfield and Huck Finn, there's a new kid on the block. Eldridge (Eldy) Brewer has arrived. In Red Evans wonderful new novel, On Ice, twelve year old Eldy along with his sidekicks, Felton Haliday and a farting dog appropriately named Whistler, embark on the ultimate road trip. Eldy, with all the salesmanship of a 3:00 AM infomercial, talks Felton into using his 1959 Studebaker pick-up, yellow of course, into the simple task of transporting a corpse from Appalachia to Louisiana. Naturally, Whistler tags along, and saves the day for the intrepid travelers more than once. Simple, right? Well, not exactly.

This engaging novel will touch your heart and tickle your funny bone, an unlikely combination in today's cynical environment. Try it and see; you'll be back for more.

This is William Faulkner after smoking mushrooms and penning As I Lay Dying.

Finally, more good Southern fried literary mischief, and it comes in the form of some scraggly and hilarious characters ... and a dog. You can't ever go wrong when you've got a dog in the story, and I'd have to say the dog might now live famously in the history of comic literature ... but what you really take away from this wonderfully funny and heart tugging tale is the feeling that if you never give up and continually defeat the lunatics in your life like certain suit salesmen ... then you'll win. There's no doubt in my mind. And I know because I'm sort of a lunatic.

Todd Sentell, author of Toonamint of Champions

When 12-year-old Eldridge Brewer, legendary banjo player Felton Haliday, and a farting dog named Whistler take to the road, you know the adventure has just begun. It is a hilarious and heartwarming trip. They travel down to Louisiana to bury a loved one, who happens to riding along--in a kiddy pool--on ice.

Dodging a nosy sheriff and a gang of mean-spirited bikers, Felton and Eldridge form a bond. They share music, tales, and hilarious attempts to control the flatulent Whistler. After several misadventures, they finally bring Tyrane to his final resting place.

On Ice is Southern humor at its best. Eldridge, with his sense of wonder and innocence, captivated me. His view of the world was a heart-felt reminder of all that is good in life.

Normally, you might think twice before tackling a story narrated in hard redneck vernacular by a twelve-year-old boy, but in this case it isn't long at all before the vernacular begins to fit like a well made glove, and Red Evan's sweet little novel, "On Ice", rises to the challenge.

It's like this. Eldridge Brewer's daddy got taken away to war and never came back. Eldy doesn't quite understand why not, yet, and secretly, he's still angry about his dad leaving him to grow up alone. The only time he can forget is when he's playing the fiddle with Uncle Tyrane, who might just be the best fiddler ever to come along. Tyrane is awful sad about something himself. Maybe that's why he and Eldy get along so well.

Turns out, Eldy isn't so bad a fiddler himself. He's got a natural flair for things. He might only be twelve, but he's got the best curve ball, and is the fastest runner in Jupiter Bluff, West Virginia, plus he's got plenty of not-quite-understood life experience stored up - and it's more than ready to spill out in ways that'll elicit a grin from even the hardest nosed reader.

Yes, Eldy stands tall as our narrator, carrying the story, but Red Evans has a great eye for character and he's given Eldy a fine supporting cast so aptly drawn you feel you've known everybody as long as you can remember.

Long story short, when Uncle Tyrane passes on, it's up to Eldy to stand up for him. The result is a road trip the likes of which you'll remember for a long time. I won't spill the beans any more than this: Eldy faces a crisis in a seedy Mega Mart men's room, which concludes with him running through the store bareass, greased up head to foot with Vaseline, pants around his ankles yelling, "Pedafiles, Pedafiles".

Mind you, Eldy doesn't quite understand what a pedafile is. He just knows the women croweded around the 70% off table won't like it, and the result is him and Felton gain time to escape the motorcycle gang.

Felton? Motorcycle gang? Where'd they come from? And the motorcycles dangling from the hot air ballon that lands in the middle of Lake Ponchartrain? It's too much to tell here. Take my advice, get you down to the bookstore and grab a copy of "On Ice" before they're all gone.

Art Tirrell is the author of the 2007 adventure novel, "The Secret Ever Keeps", of which reviewer Meg W. said, "...simply put, the best underwater scenes I've ever read."

It's always easy to play the picaresque-you just get somebody silly
and send them off on a grand quest. It's so easy in fact that it's become
the formula for a lot of popular fiction and it's so fundamental that all
those stories stay popular.
So it's remarkable that On Ice, a story of a burlesque quest told in one
of America's least literary vernaculars comes out being such a remarkable
read. It's like this: for the first two pages or so, you think you've got the Beverly Hillbillies. By page four or so, you realize that you're really
reading a compact, modern Tom Sawyer.
This isn't to say that Evans is re-inventing the language here. It's just that there
is a certain ear for a vernacular that seems just right and gets hooked up to
a story that's perfectly suited to it.
Eldridge Brewer is a war orphan and therefore an unlikely comic hero. He
is pained and his only refuge is in the music he plays with his uncle, Tyrane
who seems to have his own sense of pain.
Tyrane leaves Eldridge. Drops dead on him in fact and the circumstances push
this story almost to the edge of farce. Eldridge is charged with getting Uncle Tyrane's remains back to a place where Tyrane could never have been comfortable in life.
But this isn't a road movie. Evans has something more complex
afoot here. The wisely observant Tom Sawyer-I mean Eldridge Brewer-becomes
a muse who takes us beyond comic encounters and into a new understanding
of connection, commitment and healing.
It's difficult to write with an ear for an accent-hardly anyone outside of Ireland
can do it for English-but Evans makes you hear the talk of the rural south
without a trace of its angry racism. This is a genuinely humanistic comedy and a
really good read.

Lynn Hoffman, author of the completely uncolloquial bang BANG: A Novel

Having read many of the great Southern writers of the 20th century, I decided to Give Red Evans' book ON ICE a read. The reviews were all so good. Too many best sellers are about serial killers and vampires, car chases and what an awful childhood I had. Red takes us down a by-gone road with characters that Mark Twain would have gone to bed with. ON ICE is not just for fans of Andy Griffith and Opie or Ma and Pa Kettle. It has a great big heart, a wonderful funny bone, and two strong shoulders to hitch up your suspenders for a journey into the heart of America. Five thumbs up as I hitch a ride on Red's great American novel.