By: Jennifer Donnelly Publisher: Harcourt Paperbacks Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Harcourt Paperbacks Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 408 Publication Date: September 01, 2004 Reading Level: Young Adult
Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder.
Set in 1906 against the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, Jennifer Donnelly's astonishing debut novel effortlessly weaves romance, history, and a murder mystery into something moving, and real, and wholly original. Includes a reader's guide and an interview with the author.
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
Haunting and real At 16, Mattie Gokey is already shouldering the burdens of an adult woman's life. Her widowed father needs her to help care for her three younger sisters, as well as help him run the farm so the family doesn't starve. Some days, it seems as if Mattie can't find a minute to herself -- and the work is never completed anyways.
But Mattie has a secret ambition. Thanks to her teacher and her best friend, she has long dreamt of being a writer. She keeps a journal, writing stories and observations, and has actually won a scholarship to college in New York City.
Like countless other girls before and after, Mattie is torn. She feels responsible toward her family, especially in light of her mother's death; but also yearns toward personal freedom. At the same time, Mattie is being courted by Royal Loomis, a neighbor whose ambitions aren't anywhere near her own -- but who is, nonetheless, interested in her. She's also witnessing her best friend Minnie's marriage and subsequent motherhood of twins, the good and bad that comes with being a wife and mother.
Which will win?
As Mattie prepares to make the most important decision of her life, she spends a summer working at an Adirondack hotel catering to wealthy vacationers -- among them Grace Brown, a young woman who is mysteriously found drowned.
Donnelly skillfully weaves the story of the fictitious Mattie with the real-life Brown, making it seem believable that the two young women could have crossed paths, even briefly -- and that their lives could have impacted one another's irrevocably.
Couldn't put it down !!! This is an excellent book. Very easy to read. It made me laugh and cry.
The memories left behind... Lovely, lovely, lovely. Mattie's intelligence and innate good sense, her curiosity for life and learning and her compassion shine through. Odd to say "lovely" about a book that grows around a murder, but it's true. And that this is a "first novel" is even better, because it means I can hope for more from this author.
Passages such as:
They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. The dart and crouch and whisper.
I love Mattie's words, her love of reading and her questioning why life can't always have happy endings like books do.
A New Favorite I got this book several years ago, but have put off reading it until recently. Now I know just what I was missing! This story weaves a tale of a young girl whose life has been alterted so dramatically that she has forced to grow up faster than expected. I relates so much to Mattie throughout the story. I felt like I was sharing her every triumph and suffering from her every loss. This book is both dark and compelling, and is one of my new favorites.
One of the best "true" fictions I've read... Lest I get carried away with verbose praise, I just want to say that this is superb storytelling by Donnelly. Admittedly, I had no knowledge of the real murder of a Grace Brown. And though her letters were indeed heartbreaking, and at turns, horrific to read, I was more fascinated with the lives of Mattie and Weaver - two of the strongest characters I've ever encountered. After reading this novel, I found myself grateful that I, as yet, have not gone through the kind of back-breaking, and, dare I say it, near soul-defeating hardships the people in this novel had. But it takes masterful narration like that of Donnelly's to infuse hope, laughter, and spirit in the stories of those living in Eagle Bay.
Mattie is as real a person as one could get - loves her family so much yet still aware of all of their flaws, including her own, torn between making right by her loved ones as well as yearning to break free of a suffocating way of life, so young still in so many ways yet mature enough to realize the kind of dreams she can have. And Weaver makes me envious as well for his fearlessness and strength.
A Northern Light will take you to heights of teasing glimpses of a happy-ending for all, as well as to the downs of heartrending drama and seemingly endless trials in a small, simple town. Very provocative. Intensely memorable. A must read for all.
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