Gathering Light [Hardcover]

Jennifer Donnelly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2003

When Mattie is given the letters by a guest at the hotel in which she has a summer job she thinks that the giver is simply upset. But the next day when the woman is found drowned in Big Moose Lake Mattie has to decide if she will read the letters, or burn them as the woman requested. But Mattie has problems enough of her own as she is growing up and trying to decide on her future. Her desire to be a writer and her dreams of life outside the small rural community in which she has always lived are beginning to overwhelm her. Will Mattie make it away from home? Will she leave the family and boyfriend who both love and smother her? Will she be like her friend and settle to married life or like her other friend and mentor the poet Ms Wilcox. Slowly the two stories merge to one amazing conclusion as Mattie finds the courage to make very important decisions. Set in 1906 and built around the real life murder of a young woman in a popular holiday resort this novel is touching, surprising, moving and compelling.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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 --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens Books (June 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0747563047
• ISBN-13: 978-0747563044
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (184 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,499,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My first childhood memories are of dad trying to get me to eat lima beans, and my mom telling me stories. I still won't eat lima beans, but the stories have stuck with me, and these days, I'm telling a few of my own.

I've written three novels so far: A Northern Light, The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and Humble Pie, a picture book for children.

My first novel, The Tea Rose, an epic set in London and New York in the late 19th century, was called 'exquisite' by Booklist, 'so much fun' by the Washington Post, a 'guilty pleasure' by People and was named a Top Pick by the Romantic Times.

My second novel, A Northern Light, set in the Adirondack Mountains of 1906, against the backdrop of an infamous murder, won the Carnegie Medal, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Borders Original Voices Award, and was named a Printz Honor book. Described as 'rich and true' by The New York Times, the book was named to the Best Book lists of The Times (London), The Irish Times, The Financial Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and the School Library Journal.

The Winter Rose, my third novel and the second book in the The Tea Rose trilogy, is out now in the United Kingdom and will be published in the United States in January 2008.

Humble Pie, illustrated by Caldecott Medalist Stephen Gammell, tells the story of a selfish little boy named Theo who ultimately gets his just desserts.

I live in New York's Hudson Valley with my husband, our daughter, and Hannibal Lecter, our snapping turtle, whom we love dearly, but from a distance.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Keeping control while falling apart, October 16, 2004

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Northern Light (Hardcover)

Sometimes when authors place fictional characters in the company of real historical figures the result is laughable or strained. Too often a child figure will suddenly find his or herself in the presence of (oh say) Abraham Lincoln and will teach the great man about following his childlike instincts or some other such goo. This is not to say that historical figures and situations are at odds with children's literature. I just want to make it clear that it's rare to find a really clever and believable situation in which the real and the unreal mix. "A Northern Light" is one such rarity.

In this book, heroine Mattie Gorkey lives two different narratives. In one story, she's working at a fancy hotel in the Northern Woods in 1906. A young woman vacationing at the hotel was recently discovered drowned in a nearby lake. Weighing on Mattie's conscience is the fact that just the day before the girl had entrusted her letters to our heroine with strict instructions that they be burned. Mattie has not burned them yet. The second narrative takes place several months before the exciting events at the hotel. Here we learn far more about Mattie's background and her love of literature and writing. With a mother recently dead and a family of five to care for, Mattie's great dream is to attend Barnard College in New York. Unfortunately, her pa is anything but receptive to the idea and there's a cute boy hanging around who seems to be giving Mattie quite a bit of attention. Focusing on her own dilemmas with the caring but somewhat close minded society in which she lives, Mat must figure out who she is and what is most important to her in the end. Mixing fiction with the historical events surrounding the 1906 Grace Brown murder case, the book effortlessly combines the two stories without so much as a hitch.

Author Jennifer Donnelly has given herself a surprisingly difficult task. How do you write a historical figure, particularly a female, and make her independent without making her seem like a 21st century girl in an early 20th century world? How, in other words, do you make her believable? Make no mistake, Mattie is a very believable character. So believable, in fact, that I found myself wanting to throttle her from time to time. I mean, she's a teenager, so we have to make allowances for her behavior. If she goes all doe-eyed over the local brick-headed swain, that's only partly her fault. Just the same, I suspect readers everywhere will be sometimes screaming in their heads at this character when she tries to decide what to do with Grace's letters or her own life. As for the melding of Mattie's story with that of Grace Brown's, it's seamless. Almost as if the events told here are the hard boiled truth. Still, it's a pity that the details of Grace's life don't parallel perfectly with Mattie's. The final decision made at the book's end would make a little more sense had Grace been similar to Mattie in personality or living situation. As it is, it's not entirely clear where Mat draws her final conclusions about living and life from. But these are small potatoes. There is no doubt left in the reader's mind at the end that the book is effortlessly written.

Fans of Elizabeth Taylor's great film, "A Place In the Sun", will see definite similarities between the murder in this book and that movie. That's because both works were based on an actual trial that inspired such works as Theodore Dreiser's, "An American Tragedy". But this isn't just a younger version of an already existing tale. "A Northern Light" stands on its own as a remarkable and well-told tale of one girl and her search for (for lack of a better word) fulfillment. It's a gripping story as you read through, not certain in the least that Mattie will do the right thing at the right moment. Bound to raise a fair amount of discussion and debate. A nice new novel.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Historical Fiction Masterpiece, April 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A Northern Light (Hardcover)

This is one of those books where about a third of the way through, you anxiously thumb the remaining pages, knowing that despite your best efforts to savor it, the book will be over all too soon. When A NORTHERN LIGHT falls open, you,the reader, will fall in. Descriptions of this book by previous reviewers, while excellent and accurate, still do not prepare you for the sheer delight and pleasure of reading this story. While it has been classified as a Young Adult novel, as it does contain some language and situations, every word is absolutely true to the character who is speaking or being spoken of. I urge every teenage girl to read this, then pass it on to her mother, all of her girlfriends, aunts, a favorite teacher--in short, anyone who has a love of words, of learning, of mysteries, and a belief in the power of young women. A NORTHERN LIGHT is a most extraordinary book. Don't miss it!

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware: this is the British title for same book, May 24, 2007

By 

A. Whitley (MO United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gathering Light (Paperback)

Jennifer Donnelly's 'A Northern Light' (as it was released in the USA) is the very same book. Don't make the same mistake I did and order the UK version which is titled 'A Gathering Light' instead.

Either way though, it's one of the best books I have ever read. I am not a fan of novels set in the past but this was one exception that blew my mind! Mattie is the most endearing character, and the level of mystery is just enough to keep one fully entrenched in this novel to its finale. This is a true weekend escape in novel form!