The Sunlit Night

Description

'Lyrical as a poem, psychologically rich as a thriller, funny, dark, warm, and as knowing of place as any travel book or memoir, The Sunlit Night marks the appearance of a brave talent' Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated Frances had read of a man who painted with only the colour yellow. He lived in the north of Norway. In the beautiful, barren landscape of the Far North, under the ever-present midnight sun, Frances and Yasha are surprised to find refuge in each other. Their lives have been upended - Frances has fled heartbreak and claustrophobic Manhattan for an isolated artist colony; Yasha, a Russian immigrant raised in a bakery in Brighton Beach, arrives from Brooklyn to fulfill his beloved father's last wish: to be buried 'at the top of the world'. They have come to learn how to be alone. But in Lofoten, an archipelago of six tiny islands in the Norwegian Sea, ninety-five miles north of the Arctic Circle, they form a bond that fortifies them against the turmoil of their distant homes, offering solace amidst great uncertainty. With nimble and sure-footed prose enriched with humour and warmth, Rebecca Dinerstein's enchanting debut reminds us that no matter how far we travel to claim our own territory, it is love that gives us our place in the world.

Rebecca Dinerstein is the author of Lofoten, a bilingual English-Norwegian collection of poems. She received her BA from Yale and her MFA in Fiction from New York University, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She lives in Brooklyn. rebeccadinerstein.com @beckydinerstein

Lyrical as a poem, psychologically rich as a thriller, funny, dark, warm, and as knowing of place as any travel book or memoir, The Sunlit Night marks the appearance of a brave talent * Jonathan Safran Foer * A playful, arresting and enchanting new voice * Liz Jensen * A richly imagined and darkly comic story about loneliness and love at the top of the world * Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation * Dinerstein has done readers a big favor not only by writing this luminous story about love, family, and the bewilderment of being young but also by bringing them into an otherworldly setting: a nightless Arctic summer on the spectacular Lofoten Islands. Enchanting in every way * Maggie Shipstead, author of Astonish Me * By turns ravishing and hilarious, The Sunlit Night is more than a shining debut - it's the work of a young master. Dinerstein writes of her two lovers with sensitivity and chutzpah: human drama, a nightless summer, the transformative power of nature. Here's an exciting new voice that sings perfectly in key * Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life * The Sunlit Night heralds the beginning of an intriguing career in fiction during which Dinerstein will hopefully continue to take us off the beaten path * Huffington Post * This oddball romance has a magnificent backdrop - a small island near the Arctic Circle where the sun never sets ... Funny, sad and sharply observed * Psychologies * Refreshing ... Lyrical but it's observant and witty, too. What made the novel special for me was the striking sense of place and effortless evocation of grief that push the two central characters towards each other * Daily Mail * Luminous ... Dinerstein brings a contagious wonder to her storytelling * O, the Oprah Magazine * Quirky, exuberant ... The Sunlit Night is a novel about grief, separation and disruption - and the curative qualities of love and landscape * Wall Street Journal * Lush and compelling * Grazia * The Norwegian Arctic of Dinerstein's imagination is a strange and wonderful place ... The constant sunlight of midsummer feeds the book's dreamy, surreal quality * The New York Times Book Review * Darkly charming ... Dinerstein's prose is detailed, and keeps the novel grounded as the characters face the arctic summer's end * New Yorker * Extraordinarily captivating ... Told against the extraordinary backdrop of sun-filled, endless Norwegian days, of the unique and striking colours that seep out and shine through Dinerstein's vibrant, precise, sun-splashed prose ... This poetic novel is beautifully paced ... A compassionate novel * Irish Times *