Hanna Pylväinen’s engrossing novel The End of Drum-Time brings to light the world of the Sámi – who with their reindeer herds inhabit the northern regions of the countries now called Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia – as they coexisted and clashed with Scandinavian missionaries and settlers during this turbulent time. Lars Levi Laestadius, who plays a central role in this story, was a historical figure, a Lutheran minister, himself part Sámi, who worked to convert these nomadic people from their traditional religion and way of life. Pylväinen, who was raised in the American midwest in a sect that evolved from Laestatius’s movement, drops the reader immediately and arrestingly into a bitter northern climate that she makes intimate and familiar through the richness of her descriptions and the honesty of her characterisations.
