We Sinners
By Hanna Pylvainen 
(Henry Holt)

Hanna Pylvainen’s debut novel, “We Sinners,” is remarkably funny for a book about a deeply religious family grappling with loss of faith.

Pylvainen tells the story _ in alternating chapters from the point of view of the parents and several of the nine children ― of the Midwestern Rovaniemi family, members of a Finnish sect of Lutheranism called Laestadianism.

They live in a house too small to fit them all and get around in a vehicle so “mortifying to drive” that it is known as the “character-building van.”

They are supposed to renounce television, popular music and, of course, dating outside the church. Their faith is absolutely central to the family, with all its joys and limits: In such a context, how can you leave? But how can you stay?

“You know the best thing about the church is your family, and the worst thing about your family is the church,” remarks Matthew, the boyfriend of Tiina, as he is trying to get her to tell her parents she no longer believes.

One character eventually does leave the church. Years later, she stands in the shower and remembers her mother’s desolate face as she told her the news.

“We sinners, we are just lying to ourselves,” she thinks. “We are just alone.”

It’s impossible not to like these characters, so beautifully drawn, and so very loving to one another ― although a few of them do pick up some smug, obnoxious boyfriends.

Perhaps because Pylvainen herself grew up in the sect and left, the chapters on the characters who struggle with leaving the church are especially powerful, like the one devoted to Nels, which begins, simply but portentously, “Nels went to a party.”

Another character, Julia, home on a visit, is asked by her sister if she will ever come back. (MCT)