Sunlit Night (Dinerstein)

The Sunlit Night 
Rebecca Dinerstein, 2015
Bloomsbury (USA)
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781632861122


Summary
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 humor and warmth, Dinerstein reveals that no matter how far we travel to claim our own territory, it is ultimately love that gives us our place in the world. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987-88
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York


Rebecca Dinerstein is the author of Lofoten (2012), a bilingual English-Norwegian collection of poems, and The Sunlit Night (2015), her debut novel. She received her B.A. from Yale and her M.F.A. in Fiction from New York University, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow.

Upon receving her B.A., Dinerstein traveled to a Norwegian artist's colony where she stayed for a year to write poetry. The colony was located on the site of an abandoned asylum for the insane—in Lofoten—an archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic. “I wanted to go as far north as I could,” she has said. Lofoten became the title of her poetry collection, as well as the setting of her novel. Dinerstein now lives in Brooklyn, New York City. (Adapted from the publisher and The Telegraph.)

Visit the author's website.

Book Reviews
The Norwegian Arctic of Dinerstein's imagination is a strange and wonderful place, half stark wilderness and half Scandi-kitsch paradise…the pleasure of The Sunlit Night derives less from [Yasha and Frances's] story than from the joyfully odd landscape Dinerstein conjures, in which certain absurdities begin to seem quite natural…
Britt Peterson - New York Times Book Review


Dinerstein's crystalline prose floats off the page, her storytelling delights and surprises. She takes on the travails, absurdities and human failings with warmth and humor, embracing it all and reminding us through her characters to do the same.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


Refreshing.... The author is a poet so the prose is, not surprisingly, lyrical but it's observant and witty, too.
Daily Mail (UK)


Dinerstein's much buzzed-about debut novel is a fanciful Arctic Circle romance between a Russian immigrant raised in a Brighton Beach bakery and a Manhattanite seeking refuge from family problems in a Norwegian artists' colony.
Forward


Engaging and alive.... 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


(Starred review.) In Dinerstein’s captivating debut novel, an isolated island above the Arctic Circle is the setting for two people trying to surmount grief and find love.... With provocative insights about the cruelty of abandonment, the concept of home, and the limits of parental and filial love, Dinerstein’s novel is a rich reading experience.
Publishers Weekly


The disorienting "midnight sun" of summer near the Arctic Circle creates a mystical setting as the characters work out their personal and family dilemmas. New Yorkers Frances and Yasha (both immensely likable characters) experience profound culture shock in the sparsely populated town and yearn to connect with each other. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal


At the very top of the world, two lonely outsiders find comfort in each other in Dinerstein's deliciously melancholy debut.... Frances and Yasha—united by their separate losses...fall into an unlikely kind of romance. Dinerstein's writing is light and lyrical, and her descriptions of the far north are intoxicating.... A poetic premise with language to match.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think Rebecca Dinerstein chose to introduce us to Frances in the context of her relationship with Robert Mason? How does she see the Masons in comparison with her "desperately artistic" (21) family?

2. Examine the role of landscape in The Sunlit Night, from urban to wild, Brooklyn to Borg.

3. Frances says of her family: "The only way we knew how to be was in each other's way" (16). The layout of their apartment certainly reflects this reality, but in what other ways do the members of Frances's family intrude on one another? What seems to be Frances's role in the family, and how does that role affect her?

4. Consider Olyana's first appearance at the bakery. How did your understanding of her reason for being there change over the course of her stay? Yasha reflects on a strong memory of sharing a bar of milk chocolate with his mother. How does this memory—and her recurring association with sweets—set the tone for Olyana's character?

5. Upon meeting Nils, Frances thinks: "Here was mankind in his original state...in all his innocence" (69). What do you think is his impression of her? Do they see each other clearly? Is Frances right about their "unfulfilled romance" (164)?

6. The narration of The Sunlit Night switches from first- to third-person as it moves between Frances and Yasha. Why do you think the author made this choice? Were you surprised to encounter Frances from an outside perspective? Why or why not?

7. Consider Vassily's funeral at Eggum. Frances claims her body is "confused about grief.... I'm not laughing. I'm shaking" (127). What other aspects of this ceremony struck you as unusual or "confused about grief"? What affect did they have? What do you think would have been Vassily's reaction to this ceremony?

8. Yasha thinks, "His mother, and Frances—they did not seem tied to the idea of place. They were the anywhere sort" (140). In the world of this novel, what connects a person to place? Which characters, if any, have achieved that connection by the end? Explain.

9. Consider the use of Norse mythology in The Sunlit Night from the Yggdrasil tree sculpture to Olyana's Valkyrie costume. What links can be made between the real world of the novel and the mythological one Haldor presides over at the Viking Museum?

10. While the first four parts of the novel have places for names, the fifth has a time period—"The Other Season"—during which the narrative jumps swiftly between Frances and Yasha. How did this shift affect your understanding of their relationship and its future? Why was it important for Yasha to stay in Lofoten for part of "the other season"?

11. A sense of professional failure weighs heavily on Frances's father. "What does it matter if you do what you love, if what you love doesn't matter?" (12), he asks her. What conclusions, if any, does the novel reach about this question, particularly with regard to being an artist?

12. Rebecca Dinerstein's first book, Lofoten, is a work of poetry. Choose a passage from The Sunlit Night that feels especially lyrical and discuss its poetic use of language.
(Questions issued by Bloomsbury Publishing.)

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