Mike in Finland

Saturday 19 February 2011

The Finn´s Tale opening paragraph

Cover of The Finns Tale

This is the opening paragraph of my new novel, The Finn´s Tale, due from Ward Wood Publishing at the end of March. The tale is told by Len, an American with Finnish roots who visits Finland to meet his Finnish relatives and find about about the country and way of life and learns some unexpected and surprisings things.


Right from the start, Finland surprised me. When I arrived in Helsinki the temperature was 80 degrees Fahrenheit and it was one of the warmest places in Europe. For that day, at least. It didn´t stay that way the whole summer. Coming out of Helsinki airport the heat was noticeable and I felt overdressed in a sweater and jacket. I´ll admit to having been thrown a little off balance right at the beginning of my Finnish experience. I had always thought of myself as partly Finnish, which I am; my grandparents on my father´s side emigrated from Finland to America in 1920. And although, at the age of forty-four, this was my first-ever visit, I´d always thought of Finnishness as something I could take for granted in my idea of myself. And now here I was, being caught out by the weather, just like all the other tourists. It´s true, though, that Finnishness had played a negligible part in my upbringing. In a way, it had been conspicuous by its absence, but that absence was always present, if you take my meaning. I felt it was there as a kind of backdrop against which all the immediate experiences of everyday life took place.


Available to pre-order:

3 comments:

  1. Great! can't wait to read the rest. And the long fingers on that cover.....yikes!

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Sue. Not long now. The final edit is getting towards the end.

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  3. Yes I think those last little tweaks will be finished today so it will be off to the printer soon!

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