The Sunlit Night

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

This is a coming-of-age novel (and unusual love story) about two broken-hearted people who run away to Norway’s Lofoten islands when their lives fall apart.

Meet Frances. She’s a 21-year-old artist in New York City who still lives with her parents and sister in a tiny Manhattan apartment. She’s just endured a weekend at her boyfriend’s family estate outside the city, where she was surprise-dumped by her (terrible) beau. When she gets home in emotional tatters — after an ignominious bus ride to the city — she learns her sister is newly engaged. And then her parents announce another significant life change. Things are not going our dear Frances’ way.

Our other main character is Yasha. He’s 17 and an emigré from Russia who lives with the father he adores. They own the best bread bakery in Brighton Beach and enjoy a repetitive, simple life that’s a balm for the broken hearts caused by Yasha’s mother. She’s not in the picture, but divulging too many details about that would ruin the story. Suffice it to say, her backstory is a corker. You will not harbor warm feelings toward Yasha’s mom.

Through a series of twists and hijinks, both comic and tragic, Frances and Yasha find themselves transplanted to the Viking country of Lofoten, above the Arctic Circle. Are they running away from something? Toward something? They don’t know, and neither do we.

To reach the islands, Frances embarks on an 8-hour flight to Olso, followed by an 18-hour train ride north through the Arctic Circle, and a final, chilly 4-hour ferry ride across a fjord. In this new, wholly foreign world, she works as the apprentice to an artist who paints with only the color yellow. His current project is the Yellow Room, a barn decorated with murals that ‘had harnessed the difference between mustard and saffron.’

As Frances paints her assigned wall of the Yellow Room each day, she gradually becomes part of the community of unusual locals: the faux Vikings who work at the Viking Museum, the sullen artist, a pet ox, sheep, goats, ponies, and — eventually — the newly arrived Yasha.

The chapters alternate points of view. Frances’ accounts are narrated in her artistic, sensitive — and slightly prickly — first-person voice. We see the majestic, rugged beauty of Lofoten through her eyes. Yasha’s third-person chapters are more fairytale-like, bouncing between past and present and traveling between Brooklyn, Moscow, and Lofoten.

The tone of this novel might not be for everyone. It’s quirky but not whimsical; it’s poignant and a bit melancholy. (More like Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums or Moonrise Kingdom than The Grand Budapest Hotel.) Frances and Yasha feel like real people, mostly because in their befuddlement, they make eyebrow-raising decisions. The other characters — the pretend Vikings, the yellow-obsessed artist, and Yasha’s mother — turn up the humor and the pathos.

This engaging story examines grief and the confusion of living through the emotional tides of a loss. It celebrates multiple love stories and explores how granting grace for past mistakes might be the key to feeling free. If you like stories about second chances, have an affection for the offbeat, and want to be transported to far north Norway, this is an enchanting trip.

The mountains we drove through were horrifying—many-peaked and oversized—a species of mountain far wilder than the snowcapped triangles of picture books. The fjordwater that cut between the mountains was bright turquoise. Nils and I made our way up the E10 road across Vestvågøy, the fifth of six islands in an archipelago called Lofoten. It was two latitudinal degrees north of the Arctic Circle, separated from mainland Norway by the Vestfjord and mercifully warmed by the Gulf Stream. Tall flowers grew along the side of the road. Behind the flowers rose sheer gray rock. We drove until we reached a clearing, in the middle of which stood a long house with a curved roof that ended in dragon gargoyles. A stake with a blue sign read BORG. A shorter stake with a white sign read VIKINGMUSEET. — Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

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