Named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, Time, the Christian Science Monitor, Vox, and Kirkus Reviews
An NPR Book of the Day
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle
“In prose that is both luxuriant and precise, Hanna Pylväinen vividly transports the reader to the remote Scandinavian tundra of the 1850s, introducing complicated characters who reveal their deepest joys, sorrows, fears, and hopes. This stunning novel manages to explore major themes of identity, race, politics, and faith, all while putting the focus firmly on the human stories at hand. The End of Drum-Time masterfully takes us to a place, people, and time unfamiliar to most readers but one that becomes completely alive—and closely mirrors the most divisive and potent aspects of our contemporary lives.”
—The 2023 National Book Award Citation
“The writing is so beautiful and so entrancing that you'll embrace both the harsh realities of herding and hunting in sub-zero temperatures, and the doctrines dictated by a culture centered on suffering and submission. Fortunately, the author also gives the young couple a heated ... coupling, which, along with other scenes of communal joy and work, remind readers that even in the darkest Northern world life remains.”
—NPR
“A monumental feat of melodic prose and astute observation, Hanna Pylväinen’s historical fiction novel The End of Drum-Time transports readers to the otherworldly tundra of Scandinavia, circa 1851, where minister Lars Levi is 'always after' the 'heart' of the native Sámi reindeer herders, whom he seeks to convert. When one of these Sámi falls for Lars’s own daughter, the resulting adventure is one as powerful and profound as the book’s awe-inspiring setting.”
—Elle
“The best type of historical fiction—electrifying, edifying, and set in an utterly enthralling time and place.”
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Pylväinen’s tale offers not only exquisite prose and insightful observations, but also fresh perspectives on family bonds, cultural traditions, and religious colonialism.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“Pylväinen’s breathless, exquisite prose rushes fast as meltwater through a story of reckless lovers and desperate religious passions to an ending that feels like a flood in its inevitability and destructive force. This is a book as beautiful and unforgiving as the land it describes.”
—Constance Grady, Vox
“A deeply researched story about obedience, defiance, and what happens when the tectonic plates of two different cultures collide.”
—TIME
“Ambitious and resonant, a vivid, fascinating, and moving novel...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.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“Transcendent.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With engrossing details of reindeer herding, a beautifully rendered setting and powerful echoes of America’s own dark history of settlers forcing their religion on Indigenous peoples, The End of Drum-Time will leave a lasting impression on all readers of historical fiction.”
—BookPage (starred review)
“Brilliant. Infinitely moving. I am transfixed, inspired, and awestruck”
—Jacqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author of Red at the Bone
“Pylväinen creates a picture of a time and a place with an appealing diversity of characterization—the 'outlander' Swedes, the native Sámi—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.”
—Booklist
“Transports readers deep into an unfamiliar world, yet with familiar conflicts and desires. I was absorbed and changed. Absolutely beautiful.”
—Tracy Chevalier, New York Times bestselling author of Girl with a Pearl Earring
“The End of Drum-Time explores some of the most complex themes in literature in some of the most gorgeous prose imaginable. Hanna Pylväinen’s novel of cultural collision in the far north is an extraordinary feat of research and imagination by an author who reminds you with every page what fiction can accomplish.”
—Anthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Present
“The End of Drum-Time is a novel like no other. It is as much a historical epic as it is an intimate love story—as much a vast cultural record as it is a detailed study of a person's soul. It is infinitely rich and rewarding. In these pages, Hanna Pylväinen tells a story of love, faith, reindeer herding, and human failing. She has written a masterpiece.”
—Julia Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Disappearing Earth
“One of the most unique voices in American literature, Hanna Pylväinen occupies a space shared by the Scandinavian writers Kerstin Ekman, Tove Jansson, and, beyond that, 19th century masters. The End of Drum-Time brings the readers to a recent past, a distant land, and proves that the complexity of human nature is as relevant and timeless as the ancient landscape. A triumph from the first page to the last!”
—Yiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End
“The nuanced, fully realized world of The End of Drum-Time is mesmerising. Pylväinen renders the icy landscape at the edge of the arctic circle as vibrantly as she conjures the distinctive voices of the characters and the impossible choices the Sámi families face. Like Hilary Mantel, Pylväinen has written that rare historical novel that is as expansive as it is precise and lyrical.”
—Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
“Hanna Pylväinen’s audacious and thrilling epic about the human and spiritual costs of religious colonialism took my breath away. A literary ventriloquist, she gracefully evokes both the Sámi and the Swedes with a profound awareness of cultural nuance that makes any conversation or gesture of love thrum with social and political resonance. A brilliant achievement.”
—Marisa Silver, author of The Mysteries and Little Nothing
“The End of Drum-Time may take place in the 19th century, but its concerns—faith, love, the treatment of indigenous people—are anything but dated. I was enraptured by the vivid world of this novel, which feels like a classic. Hanna Pylväinen is an exquisite writer and this book is extraordinary.”
—Elliott Holt, author of You Are One of Them
★ 10/17/2022
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. (Jan.)
01/01/2023
Set in 1850s Sweden above the Arctic circle, Pylväinen'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 Sámi 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, Sámi 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, Pylväinen deftly shows how people can become mired in poverty and personal entanglements any time, any place.—Donna Bettencourt
Many listeners will be transported and maybe even transfixed by this audiobook. Philippe Spall portrays the inhabitants of a village in 1850s Scandinavia with subtle strength. He navigates parallel plots with energy and clarity, his tone of urgency moving the story along. Another feature of the audiobook is the research that went into creating the setting. Hearing about northern Scandinavia and the lives of those who lived there in this time period is fascinating. Add to that a love story and a journey, and you have a unique listening experience, indeed. Spall is a strong narrator whose skill contributes significantly to the effect of the novel. While the pace may occasionally be slow, his performance has an appealing immersive quality. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Many listeners will be transported and maybe even transfixed by this audiobook. Philippe Spall portrays the inhabitants of a village in 1850s Scandinavia with subtle strength. He navigates parallel plots with energy and clarity, his tone of urgency moving the story along. Another feature of the audiobook is the research that went into creating the setting. Hearing about northern Scandinavia and the lives of those who lived there in this time period is fascinating. Add to that a love story and a journey, and you have a unique listening experience, indeed. Spall is a strong narrator whose skill contributes significantly to the effect of the novel. While the pace may occasionally be slow, his performance has an appealing immersive quality. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
★ 2022-11-16
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. Pylväinen’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.
