The Dam

We meet them all before they even know what sharp turn fate is about to take. The story takes place in the remote northern Swedish countryside, where for many months it’s been raining. A Sámi man who has abandoned his people’s traditional life returns to a huge city, where he has to struggle to breathe—just to earn a living.

A famous pilot plans to fly his helicopter into the rocks and die—like Icarus. His former wife sobs over peonies destroyed by the war that separated the couple. Their daughter, a young student, learns that she is pregnant.

A worker at a hydroelectric power plant sips coffee and plans to teach his colleague proper respect for a simple man.

A lone artist paints a river with watercolors, merging in her thoughts with the elements. But the elements are unpredictable and cruel—let people think they’ve mastered it, locked it behind a dam. A lead-brown, foaming wall is already rolling toward people across half the sky, devouring everything in its path.

While everyone is busy with their own life, the elements are preparing to break their lives forever.

Mikael Niemi, author of “To Roast a Bear” and “Popular Music from Vittula,” created a novel about a catastrophic flood—but at its center is the human nature that he describes with relentless precision and an unerring sense of truth.