The Sunlit Night by Rebecca
Dinerstein
Two stories that begin in Brooklyn
come together outside the Viking Museum in the remote northern reaches of
Norway above the Arctic Circle. Yasha
came to Brooklyn from Russia ten years ago with his father. In Brighton Beach they started a successful
bakery and had a good life, but his father never stopped missing his wife that
stayed behind in their home country.
When Yasha and his father return to Russia tragedy strikes and Yasha must
journey to the end of the world. Frances
has broken up with her boyfriend, finds out her parents are getting a divorce
and her sister is getting married.
Needing to get away from it all she takes an art internship in Lofoten
Norway to apprentice to Nils who is painting an entire barn, inside and out,
with murals all done in shades of yellow to represent the land and the midnight
sun. When Frances and Yasha meet on the
Norwegian islands stories meld and reveal themselves.
This is a coming of age and fish out
of water story. It is also a family
drama and a young romance. I enjoyed the
way the author wove the story and made the strange circumstances
realistic. The two young adults from
Brooklyn are lost, charmed and found by the locals and the land they find that
summer in a stark land where the sun never really sets.
