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Shop nowThe End of Drum-Time
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Learn more"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." - AudioFile Magazine
An epic love story in the vein of Cold Mountain and The Great Circle, about a young reindeer herder and a ministerâs daughter in the nineteenth century Arctic Circle
In 1851, at a remote village in the Scandinavian tundra, a Lutheran minister known as Mad Lasse tries in vain to convert the native SĂĄmi reindeer herders to his faith. But when one of the most respected herders has a dramatic awakening and dedicates his life to the church, his impetuous son, IvvĂĄr, is left to guard their diminishing herd alone. By chance, he meets Mad Lasseâs daughter Willa, and their blossoming infatuation grows into something that ultimately crosses bordersâof cultures, of beliefs, and of political dividesâas Willa follows the herders on their arduous annual migration north to the sea.
Gorgeously written and sweeping in scope, Hanna Pylväinen's The End of Drum-Time immerses listeners in a world lit by the northern lights, steeped in age-old rituals, and guided by passions that transcend place and time.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
Hanna Pylväinen is the author of the novel We Sinners, which received a Whiting Award and a Balcones Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in Harperâs Magazine, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal; she is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Princeton Universityâs Lewis Center for the Arts, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the American-Scandinavian Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, as well as residencies from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the LĂĄssĂĄgĂĄmmi Foundation. She has taught at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, Virginia Commonwealth University; currently, she is on the faculty at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. She lives in Philadelphia.
Reviews
âAmbitious 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.â
âKirkus (starred review)
âTranscendent.â
âPublishers Weekly (starred review)
âPylväinen creates a picture of a time and a place with an appealing diversity of characterizationâthe 'outlander' Swedes, the native SĂĄmiâeach 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.â
âBooklist
âThe End of Drum-Time explores some of the most complex themes in literature in some of the most gorgeous prose imaginable. Hanna Pylväinenâs 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.â
âAnthony Marra, New York Times bestselling author of Mercury Pictures Present
âThe End of Drum-Time is a novel like no other. It is as much a historical epic as it is an intimate love storyâas 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.â
âJulia Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Disappearing Earth
âOne 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!â
âYiyun Li, author of Where Reasons End
âThe 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 SĂĄmi families face. Like Hilary Mantel, Pylväinen has written that rare historical novel that is as expansive as it is precise and lyrical.â
âIdra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
âHanna Pylväinenâs 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 SĂĄmi 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.â
âMarisa Silver, author of The Mysteries and Little Nothing
âThe 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.â
âElliott Holt, author of You Are One of Them