Not Before Sundown

Book excerpt: Johanna Sinisalo's SF and fantasy stories have won a number of awards. Published in 2000, her first novel. Not Before Sundown, was considered Finland's best novel that year and won the prestigious Finlandia Award. Mikhael, a young, gay photographer finds in the courtyard of his high-rise apartment a small. man-like creature. It's a troll--a beast from Scandinavian legend, now used to frighten unruly children. It's a demonic beast, a hybrid like a werewolf. He calls him Pessi and then he makes a terrible mistake--he takes him home with him. Trolls exude pheromones and Pessi's cause Mikhael and others to fall in love with others, and those with yet others. What Mikhael fails to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man's darkest, most forbidden feelings. Sinisalo's novel quickly became a cult book in Finland, and is now being translated into five languages--here rendered into English by the noted translator, Herbert Lomas.