false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170623141m/64482.jpg 64482 6 On the day of her father's funeral, twenty-eight-year-old Clarissa Iverton discovers that he wasn't her biological father after all. Her mother disappeared fourteen years earlier, and now Clarissa is alone and adrift. The one person she feels she can trust, her fiancé, Pankaj, has just revealed a terrible and life-changing secret to her. In the cycle of a day, all the truths in Clarissa's world become myths and rumors, and she is catapulted out of the life she knew. She finds her birth certificate, which leads her from New York to Helsinki, and then north of the Arctic Circle, to mystical Lapland, where she believes she'll meet her real father. There, under the northern lights of a sunless winter, Clarissa comes to know the Sami, the indigenous population, and seeks out a local priest, the one man who may hold the key to her origins. Along her travels she meets an elderly Sami healer named Anna Kristine, who has her own secrets, and a handsome young reindeer herder named Henrik, who accompanies Clarissa to a hotel made of ice. There she is confronted with the truth about her mother's past and finally must make a decision about how - and where - to live the rest of her life. Joan Didion said of Vendela Vida's last book: "<i>And Now You Can Go</i> is so fast, so mesmerizing to read, and so accomplished that it's hard to think of it as a first novel, which it is. Vendela Vida has promise to spare." With <i>Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name</i>, Vida more than lives up to that promise as she gives us a remarkable protagonist who is both fierce and funny, and an unforgettable literary thriller that questions whether we can ever truly know where we've come from - and if it is possible to escape our pasts. 3172830 1 2007 Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name: A Novel total:1161|5:167|4:474|3:369|2:122|1:29| 1161 4111 1737 305 3 3 false false Mon Apr 14 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 17 10:59:09 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 14 09:58:24 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Mar 26 05:21:33 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 09 11:21:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false true Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 10 13:22:26 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 11 14:05:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue May 22 14:47:57 -0700 2007 Tue May 22 15:11:39 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Dec 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 15 06:51:05 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 18:21:49 -0800 2008
(And, when you read it, you'l...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jul 22 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Apr 28 09:33:17 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 22 07:34:16 -0700 2008
Clarissa learns just after her father died that he was not her biological father at all. Her mother abandoned the family when Clarissa was 1...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Mar 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 07 17:21:12 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 17 17:28:42 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 02 09:58:30 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 09:59:25 -0800 2009
Interesting story-- and a very quick read. I started and finished it in an evening. I did feel the endin...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Oct 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 17 22:23:12 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 22:13:09 -0700 2009 the tricking of freya, which in fairness is only actually somewhat similar, but freya is a really incredible book that tells an emotionally wrenching story in an isolat...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 21 05:52:32 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 06:01:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 19:26:37 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 13 09:37:53 -0700 2009 Jonathan Lethem, I wanted something with equally tight prose so I grabbed Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name from the shelf.

The story of Clarrisa is moving, both emotionally and pace. The story unfolds as Clarrisa’s father passes away only to discover that he was ...more...]]> 0 1 false false Thu Feb 05 09:41:13 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:41:13 -0800 2009 Vendela Vida, coeditor of The Believer magazine and author of 2003's And Now You Can Go, has written a memorable__and powerful__novel. Bleak, spare, and intense, it wrestles with issues of identity, family, and obligation. Vida's stripped-down prose earns her admiration and comparisons to Joan Didio...

more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 15:16:58 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 15:27:58 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Apr 03 12:18:02 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 03 12:24:40 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Wed Aug 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 04:02:06 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 13 04:06:19 -0700 2009 What a disappointment. I began this book full of hope that it would give me a feel for the lives of the Sami people of Lapland or that it would be, as the cover quotes promised, an "examination of family and identity". Instead it is the tale of a miserable 28 year old who sets off ...more...]]> 2 0 false true Sun Nov 15 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 15 22:57:13 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 15 23:02:21 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri May 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 15:32:15 -0700 2009 Sat May 16 19:20:21 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Sun Sep 28 10:26:57 -0700 2008 Thu Feb 21 14:51:06 -0800 2008 Sun Sep 28 10:26:57 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Sun Feb 15 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jun 01 17:41:36 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 17:45:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Dec 15 09:47:44 -0800 2008 Fri Dec 19 19:32:31 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=64482