Book review: A large family faces crises of faith in 'We Sinners'
Hanna Pylvainen's first novel deftly mixes humor with the serious topic of a deeply religious family facing doubts about their faith.
We Sinners
A Novel
Hanna Pylväinen
Henry Holt, 189 pp., $23.00
By Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times
October 8, 2012
Hanna Pylväinen's debut novel, "We Sinners," is remarkably funny for a book about a deeply religious family grappling with loss of faith.
Pylväinen tells the story — in alternating chapters from the point of view of the parents and several of the nine children — of the Midwestern Rovaniemi family, members of a Finnish sect of Lutheranism called Laestadianism.
They live in a house too small to fit them all and get around in a vehicle so "mortifying to drive" that it is known as the "character-building van." They are supposed to renounce television, popular music and, of course, dating outside the church. Their faith is absolutely central to the family, with all its joys and limits: In such a context, how can you leave? But how can you stay?
"You know the best thing about the church is your family, and the worst thing about your family is the church," remarks Matthew, the boyfriend of Tiina, as he is trying to get her to tell her parents she no longer believes.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-hanna-pylvainen-20121008,0,7221732.story
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