A Northern Light

A Northern Light
Audiobook cover, 2003
Author(s)	Jennifer Donnelly
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	Harcourt Children's Books
Publication date	April 1, 2003
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	400 pp
ISBN	ISBN 978-0-15-216705-9
OCLC Number	49796591
LC Classification	PZ7.D7194 No 2003

A Northern Light (2003) is an American historical novel by Jennifer Donnelly. In the United Kingdom it was published under the alternative title A Gathering Light. It is based on the Big Moose Lake murder case of 1906, a real event, but unlike Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, also based on the murder, Donnelly's book is concerned more with the life of a young girl who gets caught up in it.

Awards and nominations

The novel won the 2003 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and the 2003 Carnegie Medal. It was named one of the Young Adult Library Services Association's top ten books for young adults in 2004, and also was a Michael L. Printz Award honor book that year. In 2007 it was selected by judges of the CILIP Carnegie Medal for children's literature as one of the UK's ten finest children's books of the past seventy years.

Plot summary

A Northern Light's feisty sixteen-year-old narrator Mathilda "Mattie" Gokey has strong morals and is highly intelligent. She lives in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York—the "North Woods" in her words—during 1906. Mattie dreams of going to college at Barnard. While she is smart enough to go, she is not allowed. Her mother died and her brother, Lawton, left home because of a fight he got in with their father. Later in the story the reader discovers that Lawton thinks his father killed their mother by working her too hard, giving her cancer. There is no one to work on the farm except Mattie and her three younger sisters, Abby, Lou, and Beth. Her family struggles with money, so they can't send a girl with two good working hands to college.

Mattie's passion is reading and writing. Every day, she looks up a new word in her dictionary so that she can educate herself and become more articulate. Her best friend, Weaver Smith, is also intelligent and has large aspirations. Weaver is African-American and is as strong in math as Mattie is in literature. Weaver is the one who shows Mattie's writings to their teacher, Mrs. Wilcox, which prompts her to send an application to Barnard for Mattie. This application leads Mattie to get a full scholarship to Barnard, but when she does the math, she knows she can't afford to buy the books, a train ticket, or to leave her father with her three young sisters to run the farm.

Mattie soon finds out that Mrs. Wilcox clandestinely writes feminist poetry, unwelcome in the world of literature. She writes about the lack of rights for women, which is a sensitive subject at the turn of the century. Her work is not looked highly upon and many people think poorly of her, but she keeps writing, encouraging Mattie to do the same.

Mattie doesn't give up completely on going to college. Before she died, her mother made her promise to pursue knowledge, and Mattie intends to. Mattie cleans her rich and nosy Aunt Josie's house every week. She tries to ask her for money, but Aunt Josie tells Mattie she is being selfish to try and leave the farm and the family, like her brother, Lawton. Aunt Josie refuses to give Mattie money.

Mattie, a romantic, is jealous of her friend, Minnie's, loving relationship with her husband Jim. Later on in the novel, Mattie helps Minnie give birth to her twins.

The novel is written in alternating chapters from the past and present. In the past, Mattie is explaining her life on the farm, and in the present she is working at Glenmore, a hotel, to earn money during the summer. At Glenmore, the body of Grace Brown is found in the lake next to Glenmore. Earlier that day, Grace had asked Mattie to burn a pack of letters. Mattie didn't have to time to burn them. She is drawn in by the mystery of what they might say, and she begins to read them. They reveal some shocking information about Grace's lover, Chester Gillette, who checked into the hotel as Carl Grahm. Grace was pregnant with Chester's child at the time, so he killed her.

Royal Loomis is also a major part of this story. He has recently developed a crush on Mattie, but she can't figure out why. She thinks she is plain, bookish, and too smart for her own good. Even though Mattie knows she likes Royal, she continues to push him away because she doesn't think he likes her for the right reasons. Despite the rejection, it draws Royal even closer. Still young and naive, Royal's continuous advances make Mattie nervous, but she can't resist. She compares Royal to the characters in books she reads, and makes herself think that he is as heroic as the literary characters. He tries to connect with her by giving her a book. Unfortunately he chooses to give her a cookbook, which is a backhanded gift that shows he wants her to be just like other girls. Mattie is more confused than ever with Royal's insincere advances. Unfortunately, all of the mixed feelings that she has for Royal end up being pointless because in the end, he only likes her because he wanted to get a part of her land.

Emmie Hubbard, the lonely, poor, and depressed neighbor with seven children, is having an affair with a married man, Mr. Loomis, Royal's father. Royal resents the Hubbards because he thinks that his father treats them better than his own family.

After Weaver's house was set fire by the same people that murdered his father, taking all of his saved money with it, Emmie steps up and invites Weaver's mother to stay with her in her home. Now Emmie has a good, strong-willed woman to clean her up and help her with a business to make money. Weaver's mother has a place to stay where she is needed.

In the end, Mattie makes the incredibly difficult choice to leave the North Woods and go to school in New York City. She leaves in the morning, and the only person she tells is Weaver. She writes three letters, one to her father, one to Royal, and one to Weaver's mother. To her father, she leaves two dollars and a promise that she will keep in touch. To Royal she leaves the ring that he gave to her when he proposed. Finally, to Weaver's mother she leaves just enough money to pay off Emmie's taxes. She also gives Weaver money for a train ticket to college. As her closest friend, Weaver does not want her to leave but he understands that she is going to make a better life for herself. Though she feels incredibly guilty for leaving, she can't help but also feel excited, scared, and willing. She has made her peace with Grace because she decided to show the letters to the world so now everybody can see the true, tragic story of Grace Brown. She is now ready to leave it behind, and keep her life in the North Woods as a memory.

Major characters

• Mattie Gokey: age 16 (she later turns 17), the eldest daughter of a widower farmer, who earns a college scholarship and aspires to become a writer. Mattie states that she is good at telling herself lies, and other characters comment she often seems oblivious to the events going on around her. Mattie believes that she is not courageous like Weaver or Miss Wilcox, but eventually finds the courage to go to New York.

• Emily Baxter/Wilcox: is an unconventional poet who has written poems controversial enough that they have been burned and condemned by the highest authorities. Her husband, who does not approve of Emily's poetry, tries to get her committed and eventually, she flees to Paris. Under the name of Miss Wilcox, she acts as a teacher and friend to the main character, Mattie. She also helps Mattie achieve her dream of going to college.

• Weaver Smith: is the only black boy in the entire area and Mattie's best friend. He worked at the Glenmore Hotel along with Mattie in order to earn money for the train ticket to New York City, where he would attend Columbia University. Weaver is often a source of inspiration and exasperation to Mattie, and they both share a love of books, making Weaver frustrated by Mattie's affections for the inarticulate Royal Loomis.

• Royal Loomis: is a handsome but dull boy who Mattie and many other girls are sweet on. Although he doesn't understand Mattie's love for books and words, after spending some time together, he asks to marry her and she says yes. Mattie, however, returns the ring later on after she decides to go to New York City. Royal harbours bitterness toward Emmie Hubbard and her children, as his father treats Emmie better than he does his wife. In the end, he only liked Mattie because of the possibility of getting her land.

• Minnie: is Mattie's best girl-friend. She's pregnant with twins, who Mattie helps deliver later on in the plot. Minnie is married to Jim Compeau and they are very much in love, in comparison to Mattie's uncertainty towards Royal.

• Abby, Lou and Beth: are Mattie's three sisters. Beth is the youngest, aged 5, is described to be a noisy, boisterous little girl. Mattie states in the book that she knows Beth will grow up to be 'truly beautiful' someday. Lou is the middle sister, aged 11, and is very wild and tomboyish. Before the death of their mother and their brother Lawton leaving, Lou was very close to their father, and is hurt by the sudden distance between them. She is the only girl out of the four sisters to have her father's blue eyes and black hair, which she shares with Lawton, their brother. Lou frequently cuts her hair out of anger and to suit her boyish attitude. Abby, the second oldest, is 14 and described as being kind but somewhat introverted. She is also a better cook then Mattie is. Mattie, Abby and Beth all have brown hair and eyes, like their mother. Mattie's sisters are another reason why Mattie is torn between going to New York and staying to look after them.

• Emmie Hubbard: is a widow whose farm lies between the Loomis' and the Gokeys. Emmie is considered to be 'the village fruitcake'. She has several children, but most of them have different fathers. Tommy, one of her eldest, is very close to Mattie; she considers him a little brother. Emmie's children often go to their neighbours to beg food off them. When Weaver's mother is attacked near the end of the novel, however, Emmie reforms and repays her kindness by taking care of her. As a result, Emmie's home situation improves and her children begin to help with the farming, being unable to previously due to Emmie's frequently unstable moods. The Loomis family dislike the Hubbards.

• Aunt Josie: Mattie's rich stuck up aunt. No matter what Mattie does she cannot please her.

• Table 6: The perverted man at the hotel who indecently exposes himself to the waiters.

• Cook: The chief at Glenmore. She is pushy, but cares about the waiters.

• Jim Compeau: Minnie's husband. He loves Minnie and their twins.

• Mr. Baxter: Miss Wilcox's husband who doesn't approve of her "free" writing style.

• Mr. Loomis: Father of Royal and his brothers, who is cheating on his wife with Emmie.

• Mrs. Loomis: The stuck-up mother of Royal and his brothers. Mattie says she understands why Mr. Loomis is cheating on her.

• Grace Brown: The body that shows up in Big Moose Lake. A girl who is killed by Chester Gillette and was pregnant with his child.

• Chester Gillette "Carl Grahm": Grace Browns murderer. He kills Grace by hitting her with a tennis racket so she is unconscious and then drowning her in a lake. No one suspects that it was him.

• Pa: The father of Mattie, Lawton, Lou, Beth, and Abby. He is bitter and depressed from the loss of their mother. His French name is Michael Gauthier.

• Lawton: The eldest of the Gokey family children. After getting in an argument with Pa, he left and hasn't been seen since.

• Weaver's Mama: Loving and kind, supports Weaver's wanting to go to Columbia.

• Uncle Fifty: Mattie's uncle who is an alcoholic but is very kind. Sometimes he promises false things while he is drunk, and he travels around the world as a French river man who visits the Gokey family very rarely. He always brings great presents for every member in the family.

Non-Fiction Element

Jennifer Donnelly intertwines this real-life murder of Grace Brown with fictional Mattie Gokey's story. The readers get a taste of how bitter and sweet ordinary life is in the 1900s mixed with a non-fiction murder mystery.

References

Awards
Preceded by Ruby Holler	Carnegie Medal recipient 2003	Succeeded by Millions