The Darkest Evening Book

A thrilling novel of a young boy's devastation when his father uproots him and moves their family to Russia, where a society of Finnish-Socialists attempt to found a workers' paradise.

Jake's life is turned upside down when his father gets caught up in the Socialist fervor washing over their Finnish mining community in Minnesota. His father decides to move their family to a new, Finnish state inside the Soviet Union, a change that fills Jake with dread. Where his father dreams of creating a worker's paradise, Jake and his family find disappointment and hardship. The story culminates with a thrilling escape--on skis--from Russia to Finland.

In the 1930s, a young Finnish-American boy reluctantly moves with his family to Karelia, a communist-Finnish state founded in Russia, where his idealistic father soon realizes that his conception of a communist utopia is flawed.