The Ice Palace Waltz

In the autumn of 1895, citizens of Leadville, Colorado construct the Ice Palace: a last sign of hope for the fading silver mining town. There, on New Year’s Eve beneath the magic lights and frozen ramparts of this fantastic ice marvel, June Selig and Nathan Grensky, dance and fall in love.

Across the country in New York City, the waning years of the Gilded Age and a failed stock market gamble crushes the dreams of the Greenbaums. Only Tillie can save her family from ruin by entering into a marriage of convenience.

Two decades later, Tillie, resigned to a passionless marriage, encourages her daughter Margie to live the romance she was denied and take a chance on the dashing, hard-drinking newsman Tommy Grensky, the Leadville Ice Palace lovers’ son. But when the young couple travels to London in 1937, they encounter a changing Europe under the rise of Nazism.

In The Ice Palace Waltz, two Jewish immigrant families-the rough and ready Western pioneers and the smooth, our crowd New Yorkers-come together in a riveting family saga amid the financial and social tumult of early twentieth century America. Baer’s moving multigenerational novel traces the American Jewish experience and the enduring power of family and love.