- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (April 30 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0152167056
- ISBN-13: 978-0152167059
- Product Dimensions: 21.9 x 14.6 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #515,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write.
At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real.
Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real. (14 and older) --Jennifer Lindsay
From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Mattie Gokey, 16, a talented writer, promised her dying mother that she would always take care of her father and younger siblings. She is stuck on a farm, living in near poverty, with no way of escaping, even though she has been accepted at Barnard College. She promises to marry handsome Royal Loomis even though he doesn't appear to love her. Now, Mattie has promised Grace Brown, a guest at the Adirondack summer resort where she works, to burn two bundles of letters. Then, before she can comply, Grace's body is found in the lake, and the young man who was with her disappears, also presumably drowned. This is a breathtaking tale, complex and often earthy, wrapped around a true story. In 1906, Grace Brown was killed by Chester Gillette because she was poor and pregnant, and he hoped to make his fortune by marrying a rich, society girl. Grace's story weaves its way through Mattie's, staying in the background but providing impetus. The protagonist tells her tale through flashback and time shifts from past to present. Readers feel her fears for her friend Weaver-the first freeborn child in his family-when he is beaten for being black and his college savings are stolen, and enjoy their love of words as they engage in language duels. Finally, they'll experience her awakening when she realizes that she cannot live her life for others. Donnelly's characters ring true to life, and the meticulously described setting forms a vivid backdrop to this finely crafted story. An outstanding choice for historical-fiction fans, particularly those who have read Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy.
Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Lisa Prolman, Greenfield Public Library, MA
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
When summer comes to the North Woods, time slows down. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
When summer comes to the North Woods, time slows down. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Wonderful Read,
This review is from: A Northern Light: A Novel (Paperback)
After reading Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, I knew I had to read A Northern Light. As was expected, the book did not disappoint. I absolutely loved it. It was so beautifully written, the characters are so easy to like, and it is hard not to fall into this story.To check out my full review, please go to: [...]
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Young Woman Finds Her Voice,
By ravenclaw29 (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Northern Light: A Novel (Paperback)
A Northern Light is the story of a murder. A true-story murder of a beautiful woman named Grace Brown occurring in the fancy Glenmore Hotel in New York City in 1906; a murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's epic novel, An American Tragedy. That is what the back cover of this book says, though it greatly misleads the curious reader. A Northern Light is really the story of a young woman named Mattie Gokey---a sixteen-year-old girl from a destitute family living on a farm in rural New York---who finds her voice in the world through writing with her beloved words, and her struggle to deal with hardships left for those still on earth after someone dies.Mathilda Gokey, called Mattie or Matt, does not live a very luxurious or happy life. Mattie's mother has died, leaving her father completely grief-stricken. Mattie's older brother Lawton has left the farm for good, and Mattie's father is left to run a farm and care for four girls. The jobs which were once Lawton's, are now Mattie's; the family often struggles terribly to deal with their lack of money. Mattie tries to make things the best for her younger sisters---Abby, Lou, and Beth. But it still seems like no use. Mattie dearly wishes hat she could attend college, for she is a very talented writer that loves words---she even picks a word of the day out of the dictionary--and even though she has received a scholarship to Barnard College, her father refuses to allow Mattie to go. It is because he's afraid he will lose just one more family member, for the third time. But even with the scholarship, Mattie does not have enough money for the train fare and tickets. So she decides to work at the Glenmore Hotel for the summer, to earn enough money to go to Barnard College in September. There, at the Glenmore Hotel, Mattie is unwillingly---and forced unknowingly, at the time---pulled into a ruthless battle of fights and whims with the dead when she makes an unbreakable promise to Grace Brown: she will, without peeking a look at them, burn Grace's many private letters to her beau, the man she came with---Carl Grahm, or Chester Gillette, as Grace lovingly calls him. Mattie struggles with her own beliefs that everyone should keep the promises they have truly made to the dead, and in Mattie's case, to the murdered Grace Brown, and the intense fear of being caught red-handed with the private letters by those investigating Grace's death, and the search party still scouring the area for Carl's body, which has not yet been found. In this moving tale of a young sixteen-year-old woman named Mattie Gokey finding her voice, and also learning that not only words can give a voice ringing throughout the world, skilled author Jennifer Donnelly weaves a magnificent story full of romance, history, and suspense, all inspired by and against the complex backdrop of the vicious, famous murder of Grace Brown at the Glenmore Hotel, New York, in 1906. Mattie is an extremely likable protagonist, who misses her mother dearly, and tries to remind herself of her mother by hugging the words her mother loved so dear tight as a thick comfort blanket, but then being taught by real people that words cannot explain all the mysteries and emotions of life. Highly recommended!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting!,
By
This review is from: A Gathering Light (Paperback)
I've recently finished this book and was totally absorbed by it. Two stories run on parallel grounds.Set in the early 1900's, Mattie is a young lady very torn between her dreams of becoming a writer and family related responsibilities. To add to her dilemmas, she falls in love, feeling more and more confused. Grace is another young lady whose body is found lifeless in the lake by the Glenmore Hotel, where Mattie works. Both girls' tales entwine and merge in a clever and entertaining combination. The prose is pictorial and detailed, conveying the surroundings, the characters and their feelings so nicely. There's a little gem embedded in the beginning of each chapter, which is not numbered but starts off with the introduction of a new word, as part of a game that Mattie and her friend Weaver play every day to strengthen their vocabulary. Each word is irrelevant to the core of the story but there's always the appropriate space for it, a clever touch. I found myself playing along and testing my own vocabulary! There are many themes in this book: poverty, racism, love, compassion, hope are but a few. The narrative is creative and clever, with very sad and very funny situations too. The sense of humour conveyed by Mattie is remarkable. When I started it, I had avoided reading the summary on the back cover (a bit revealing I later realised), but I was glad I did, so that the last part of the book took me completely by surprise. Definitely a timeless novel, I would suggest it for young readers too (15+). P.S. A little note: "A Gathering Light" and "A Northern Light" are exactly the same book, the second one being the American original title. I was about to buy it when I realised they were the same. Just so you know.
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