Sinisalo, Johanna 1958–

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Sinisalo, Johanna 1958–

PERSONAL: Born 1958, in Sodankylä, Lapland.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Grove Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Novelist, television writer, advertising writer, story editor, and author of science-fiction and fantasy stories and comic strips.

AWARDS, HONORS: Finlandia Award, 2000, and IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 2005, both for Not before Sundown; Atorox Prize for best Finnish science-fiction or fantasy story, six-time recipient; Kemi National Comic Strip Contest, three-time recipient.

WRITINGS:

Ennen Päivänlaskua ei voi, Tammi (Helsinki, Finland), 2000, translated from the Finnish by Herbert Lomas as Not before Sundown, Peter Owen Publishers (London, England), 2003, published as Troll: A Love Story, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2004.

TELEVISION SCRIPTS; SERIES

Kotikatu, 1995.

Elämän suola, 1996.

Samaa sukua, eri maata, 1998.

Käenpesä, 2004.

Contributor to books, including The Dedalus Book of Finnish Fantasy and Intohimosta rikoskeen (title means "From Passion to Crime").

Author's works have been translated into English, Swedish, French, Japanese, Latvian, Czech, Italian, and Polish.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist and television writer Johanna Sinisalo is also well known in her native Finland as a fantasist. She is a prolific and award-winning writer of comic strips, science-fiction tales, and fantasy stories.

Sinisalo combines a fantasy approach with contemporary literary style in Troll: A Love Story, originally published in Finnish as Ennen Päivänlaskua ei voi and published in England as Not before Sundown. After a night of bar-hopping and unsuccessful attempts to pick up a one-night stand, gay photographer Mikael "Angel" Hartikainen returns home to find a group of young thugs tormenting what looks like an animal in the courtyard of his apartment building. When he chases them off, the animal turns out to be an extremely rare, near-mythical creature—a genuine troll, real and recognized by science in the world of this novel. Angel takes the creature home to nurse it back to health, but trolls are considered endangered species, and owning one is illegal. Legalities, however, are the furthest things from Angel's mind as he ministers to the troll, naming it Pessi after another troll in a children's book, and figures out how to keep it fed and happy.

Despite Angel's efforts, the creature sinks further into ill health, and Angel desperately searches for information on troll care. He contacts his ex-lover, a veterinarian, who suggests strong antibiotics and these cure the listless troll, turning it into a compact, energetic dynamo jumping and leaping around Angel's apartment. While Angel has been helping the troll recover, the creature has been exerting its own nearly undetectable influence on him; a pack animal, the troll views Angel as an alpha male. More subtly, Pessi emits a strong pheromone, a molecular scent trail that non-speaking animals use to communicate. In this case, the troll's pheromones, juniper with a hint of musk, cling to Angel and draw people irresistibly to him, including mythology expert Ecke, who is hopeless smitten with Angel; Angel's boss and sometime lover Martes; and a Filipino mail-order bride, Palomita, who lives downstairs.

When Pessi is recovered, Angel is struck with the idea to use him in a photo shoot for a jeans ad campaign. Though the creature fights and struggles to escape from the confining clothing, Angel keeps on shooting, mindless of Pessi's alarm and pain. Later, when the troll sees his image in a magazine, he comes to the very human-like conclusion that he has been exploited. "Gradually the elements of this drama of betrayal build to a horrible catharsis," noted Washington Post Book World reviewer Chris Lehmann. An accidental killing leads to a harrowing meeting with Pessi's wild kin in the forest. "The Stuff of ancient legend shadows with rather unnerving precision the course of unloosed postmodern desire," Lehmann observed.

While on the surface the story displays elements of whimsical fantasy, a much more sinister potential lurks beneath the surface, much as the cannibalistic witch dwelled within the tasty gingerbread house and the Big Bad Wolf hid under benign grandma's nightgown. "Although it exploits the conventions of the fantasy genre, it clearly transcends them," commented Ellen Emery Heltzel in USA Today. Pessi the troll is unpredictable, in all respects a wild animal, and not even Angel knows what will happen when he attempts to return the creature to its natural habitat. Sinisalo "creates scenes that make you laugh out loud; ten pages later you're holding your breath with anxiety," observed Kevin O'Kelly in Boston Globe. "Such talent is not to be taken for granted." The book "offers an ingenious dramatization of the nightmare of blurred boundaries between species, and a disturbing dystopian vision reminiscent of Karel Capek's classic War with the Newts, commented a Kirkus Reviews critic. Troll "is a brilliant and dark parable about the fluid boundaries between human and animal," O'Kelly stated.