The End of Drum-Time

October 1, 2022

In the 1850s Scandinavian tundra, Lutheran minister Mad Lasse finally succeeds in converting one of the native S�mi reindeer herders, who leaves headstrong son Ivv�r to singlehandedly manage their herd. Then Ivv�r and Mad Lasse's daughter Willa fall in love, with Willa following the annual reindeer migration north to the sea. From Whiting Award winner Pylv�inen (We Sinners); with an 80,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from October 17, 2022
Pylväinen’s captivating latest (after We Sinners) follows the inhabitants of a tiny Swedish village in the Arctic Circle in 1852 as a pastor’s popularity begins to take off. Lars Laestadius’s church had been filling with Finns, Swedes, and native Sami who were drawn in by his wild sermons. Then, one day, Biettar Rasti, a former Sami shaman and prominent reindeer herder who’s now a drunk, interrupts a service with his own awakening on the church floor, which coincides with an earthquake. He leaves his herd to his son Ivvar and frequents the parsonage to learn scripture from Lars’s family, and Lars’s daughter Willa takes a shine to Ivvar. Ivvar, like his father, drinks and is indebted to the village storekeeper whose collection he avoids. Ivvar breaks things off with a Sami girl and begins spending time with Willa, and when Lars catches them kissing, she is shunned. Soon Willa sets off on sledges and takes refuge with the Sami, who along with Ivvar, are moving with their herds to the sea. By the end, a dean’s intervention into Lars’s temperance teachings and attempts to collect debts from the Sami culminate in tragic violence. With immersive details of Bible thumping and reindeer herding, the author evocatively captures two cultures and shows what happens when Christian mores collide with the customs of the remote Sami. This is transcendent.

December 1, 2022
Pylv�inen (We Sinners, 2012) offers a window into the unique geography and culture of the S�mi, reindeer-herding inhabitants of icy Finnish Lapland, in the Arctic Circle. In 1851, the indigenous S�mi fill a small village church to hear the passionate if somewhat unhinged sermons of the Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse. In the midst of an earthquake, he oversees the conversion of Beittar, a leader in the S�mi community. Intersecting story lines involving a variety of young people and their romantic relationships (Mad Lasse's daughter Willa and Beittar's son Ivv�r amongst them) coexist with a political situation that threatens the S�mi way of life, caught as they are between Swedes, Finns, and Russians. Pylv�inen creates a picture of a time and a place with an appealing diversity of characterization--the "outlander" Swedes, the native S�mi--each character crafted with a depth and complexity that brings them to life, from their religious beliefs to the cultural ties that knot them together and tear them apart. All is told through expressive prose that makes for an engaging immersion in a unique world.

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Starred review from December 1, 2022
This second novel by award-winning author Pylväinen--following We Sinners (2012)--brings to life a clash of cultures in 19th-century Lapland. In 1851 in the remote town of Gárasavvon in northern Scandinavia, preacher Lars Levi Laestadius tries to turn his congregation of Swedes, Finns, and Sámi reindeer herders away from alcohol--"the Devil's piss"--toward God. "He looked at his congregants, his parishioners, his reindeer, skittish on the snow, and he saw them multiply before him, ten upon ten, so that the back of the church was not littered with drunks who stank of their drinking, but instead each face shone clean and each body's blood coursed with the mysteries and the magics of Christ." Revered among his followers, his spiritual awakenings begin to concern the church authorities to the south. Meanwhile, one of his daughters falls in love, the local shopkeeper laments his choices, a local woman breaks her engagement, and the Sámi herders prepare to drive their reindeer to the sea on their traditional route. Pylväinen seamlessly moves among different points of view, giving rich and satisfying breadth to a story of cultural upheaval. In the little Gárasavvon church, a confrontation about faith starts a chain reaction. And in Russia, decisions are being made that will impact everyone, the fallen and the saved. Pylv�inen's excellent debut novel concerned a contemporary American family, members of the obscure religious sect called Laestadianism; this novel goes back to its roots. Beautifully written and masterfully researched, the book's greatest triumph is the characters, full of human foibles, passions, and tenderness, jealousy, courage, doubts, and moments of transcendence. "He looked at the children, and he wondered suddenly about the length of their lives, if they would lose their reindeer, if they would go on to live in homes with walls that didn't move....The thought made him inexpressibly sad." Ambitious and resonant, a vivid, fascinating, and moving novel.

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January 1, 2023

Set in 1850s Sweden above the Arctic circle, Pylv�inen's second novel (after We Sinners) is the multilayered story of families dependent on the reindeer herds, struggling against extreme elements, and torn by the strife between Russia and its neighbors. Lutheran minister Lars Levi has been zealously preaching Christianity in a small village for over 20 years. His religious fervor and popularity are slowly destroying the S�mi people Indigenous to the region, many of whom are still practicing the old ways, but he is also at odds with mean-spirited local authority Frans Lindstrom. After transferring Lars to a lonely outpost and taking over his church, Frans starts collecting debts from all who owe money to his nephew Henrik's general store. Badly in debt to Frans, Henrik meekly does his uncle's bidding. Meanwhile, Lars's daughter Willa impetuously runs off with her lover, S�mi herder Ivvar, whose father has been relocated to become an itinerant preacher and leaves Ivvar to manage their herd alone. No one expects Tsar Nicholas to close the Russian border over fishing rights, but the reindeer don't stop grazing at the border, leading to bloody confrontation. VERDICT Even as the distinctive time period and locale set apart this complex saga of birth, death, love, and broken hearts, Pylv�inen deftly shows how people can become mired in poverty and personal entanglements any time, any place.--Donna Bettencourt

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