| The Emperor of Ice-Cream | |
| Author: | Brian Moore |
| Publisher: | McClelland and Stewart (Canada) Viking Press (US) Andre Deutsch (UK) |
| Pub Date: | 1965 |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Bildungsroman |
| Oclc: | 368948 |
| Pages: | 250 |
| Preceded By: | An Answer from Limbo (1962) |
| Followed By: | I Am Mary Dunne (1968) |
The Emperor of Ice-Cream is a 1965 coming-of-age novel[1] by writer Brian Moore. Set in Belfast during the Second World War, it tells the story of 17-year-old Gavin Burke who, admitting "war was freedom, freedom from futures", defies his nationalist and Catholic family by volunteering as an air raid warden with the largely Protestant ARP.[1] The novel follows Gavin's journey as he realises that there are those on the other side of the city's bitter communal division whose friendships offer a wider horizon.
Based in part on Moore's own wartime experiences,[2] he described it as the most autobiographical of his novels.[3] Moore left Belfast in 1943 to join the British Ministry of War Transport and worked himself for a period with the ARP in London.
The book is dedicated, as were all of Moore's subsequent novels, to his partner Jean,[4] who became his second wife two years after its publication. Its title is taken from Wallace Stevens' poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream".
The book was dramatised by the Northern Irish actor, playwright and theatre director Bill Morrison; the play was performed at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1977.[5]