Book Report: Let the northern lights erase your name

I read a brief description in the New York Times book review about Vendela Vida’s latest book Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name.  Since I am struggling to get through another book with a similar title, Northern Lights: Inuit Textile Art from the Canadian Artic I thought I’d give it a go.  I was intrigued by the title and the Lapland setting, not to mention the author’s name–Vendela Vida, sounds so lovely.  I honestly had never heard of Lapland or of the Finnish county of Finnmark.  Since the author and the main character of the story, Clarissa, are both from the US, the description of this arctic terrain didn’t feel as authentic as a story written by a native Sami might.  (The Sami are the native people from Lapland and a major focus of the novel).  Although Vida visited the area and did a ton of historical research, I struggled to get a strong feel of the land from her prose.  Vida’s novel did successfully portray the story of Clarissa and her mother in such stark terms that I still feel shaken.  While Clarissa ventures to Lapland in search of her biological father, she confronts the long ago abandonment of her by her mother, Olivia.  Vida does an amazing job giving voice to Olivia’s decision to leave her family behind.  Having had postpartum depression, I can relate to the choice she made.  I think most new moms have this fantasy from time to time but are too fearful of being condemned to share our feelings with anyone.  What’s remarkable is how Vida portrays Olivia’s story in a way that straddles the line between sympathy and disgust for her decision.  That the mother isn’t uniformly dismissed as a bad woman who turned her back on motherhood is an amazing narrative feat that Vida handles with ease.   There is a ton of mommy-themed literature out there, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name adds an unusual spin that feels very real to me.  

Sami Family between 1890-1900