The Brooklyn Iceman is a colorful saga spanning the 20th century from 1915 until the 1980's, using one man's experience to illustrate many of the important historical and cultural events of the era from the perspective of a pragmatic and amoral individual. The novel follows Vincenzo Castella, whose story begins with becoming an iceman in Brooklyn as a teenager and moving on from there into a position of leadership among the icemen. He finds himself drifting into relationships with criminal groups and is finally confronted with the harsh reality that he has, in fact, become a criminal himself, by association: the reluctant criminal.Castella's story also defines the journey of the first, second and future generations of Italian immigrants in their quest to establish a good and secure life for themselves and their families. Many of these hardworking men -- and only very few of them actually resorted to crime, regardless of what Hollywood seems to think -- turned to people like Castella to help them understand how to succeed in the new world.