THE REINDEER OF CHINESE GARDENS

Sjoholm’s historical saga introduces readers to the ever-adventurous writer Dagny Bergland and her personal odysseys at sea and elsewhere.

At 18, the author’s protagonist, Dagny, marries the much older sea captain Edvard Bergland, and they sail around the world. They end up unofficially adopting young orphan Kjell Fossen in Lima, Peru, before fetching up in Port Townsend, Washington, after Edvard’s ship burns at anchor in San Francisco. Edvard, still almost always at sea, dies while ferrying prospectors to Alaska. Meanwhile, the U.S. government hatches a plan to entice the Sámi, renowned reindeer herders from the far north of Norway, to deliver 500 reindeer to eventually serve as food for starving gold miners. What the book eventually depicts is the tragic, wide-scale disruption of cultures against the backdrop of the 1898 gold rush. The character of Dagny is a writer, and she composes sketches to send to Norway, where folks are eager to learn of how their compatriots are faring in this new world. Dagny “adopts” the infant daughter of a dead Sámi woman whom she’d befriended and falls in love with a Sámi man much her junior. Eventually readers are led to believe that Dagny longs to return to Bergen—but does she? And then there’s the issue of the Sámi, whom the dominant Norwegians treated much the way those in the U.S. treated the Native Americans, destroying their culture and forcing their children into boarding schools. Sjoholm is an experienced writer and gifted storyteller, eloquent on the subject of Sámi prejudice and the poignant dilemma for all immigrants: Make a life for yourself in this new world, or surrender to the emotional pull of the old country? In that sense, the book tells a fascinating story of homesickness and prejudice. And while Dagny has her own demons (“Who does the past belong to and how do you mend the errors that you’ve made?”), she ends up being not just a survivor, but a humane model for all of us.

An engrossing novel that features a memorably strong, vibrant female character.