A Northern Light (or A Gathering Light in the UK), is a novel written by Jennifer Donnelly and published by Harcourt in 2003. The novel is known for using the murder of Grace Brown (a real life event
) in their story.
The novel focuses on the life of a 16-year-old girl named Mathilda Gokey (aka "Mattie") who dreams of leaving her small town and studying at Barnard College, located in New York, as she promised to her late mother. Mattie has the necessary knowledge, but her father does not approve of this decision, since if she leaves, her younger sisters will have to take over the work of the family farm. Also, Mattie had a brother named Lawton, who left after a fight with her father, and Mattie is afraid of ending up like him and losing her relationship with her father as well.
Along with these events is the murder of Grace Brown, a girl who drowned and the details of how it happened are not known. Mattie possesses the letters that Grace wrote before she died.
Mattie must decide between leaving for a better life at the cost of leaving her family behind her, or staying to work with her father and stop studying, breaking the promise she made to her mother.
A Northern Light has examples of:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Mattie is attracted to Royal by his attitude, a certain mystery in him and by his propositions, and if to this is added that he is the first boy who shows interest in her, Mattie reciprocates the mayority of the time. Mattie suspects that he loves her, but not for the right reasons.
- Anonymous Author: In universe, Mattie's teacher, Emily Wilcox, writes feminist poetry about the lack of women's rights. Because this is a sensitive issue at the beginning of the century (1906, the time when the events of the novel take place), she does it in secret.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mattie decides to leave the farm as she promised to her mother to try to fulfill her dream and have a better life (in addition to revealing Grace's killer). But by doing this she leaves all of her tasks to her sisters and, although she promises her father to keep in touch with him, she does not guarantee that he will take it in a good way.
- Chekhov's Gun: Grace gave Mattie several letters which she asked her to burn, but due to lack of time she did not burn them and hid them. Guess how you know who killed Grace ...
- The Chess Master: Chester murdered Grace of her by knocking her unconscious, taking her to a lake and flipping the boat she was in to make it look like an accident. He took care not to leave any clues that could incriminate him, and used the name "Carl Grahm" when he checked into a hotel other than Grace's. No one suspected it was him, and he wouldn't have been caught if Mattie had had time to burn Grace's letters (at least in the novel; in real life he was the main suspect: he changed his story multiple times, which caused his rapid arrest).
- Flashback: Part of the story is told by Mattie through memories to explain what life on the farm is like.
- Jerkass: Royal shows signs of this when he gives Mattie a cookbook for her 17th birthday, as he knows Mattie likes books. However, he appears not to be when he proposes to her and gives her a ring, showing that he is serious in their relationship. At the end of the story, is revealed that Royal did not love her: he only wanted to marry her for the possibility of acquiring the lands of her family.
- Posthumous Character: Grace Brown. Her death is part of the plot, plus it actually happened.
- The Reveal: It occurs at the beginning of the story, but does not mean that it has less value: Grace was murdered by her lover, whose real name is Chester Gillete, when he learned that Grace was pregnant.
