A Gathering Light

Can you have love and books? For 17-year-old Mattie, growing up by Big Moose Lake on the edge of the Adirondack Mountains in the early 1900s, the only option appears to be marriage and life on a farm. Even her teacher, the stylish Miss Wilcox, who introduces her to such writers as Edith Wharton, Zola, Hardy and Walt Whitman and who turns out to be the controversial author of a book of feminist poems, has not reconciled marriage and the life of the intellect.

Donnelly’s assured voice conjures up the riveting detail of rural life and work (Mattie’s heart swells up ‘like bread dough’) into which the outside world of New York begins to impinge as Big Moose Lake attracts tourists. But more disturbing themes surface as time moves back and forth to create a many layered and turbulent narrative – more The Stone Diaries than Little House on the Prairie. A young woman guest at the nearby hotel where Mattie works in the kitchens is found drowned in the Lake. A canoeing accident is assumed but her letters, entrusted to Mattie, tell another story. Betrayal is everywhere and ironically, it is Mattie who has to break a promise in order to pursue her authentic self.

Mattie’s love of words has her playing a dictionary game, choosing ‘the word of the day’ (‘sesquipedalian’, ‘abscission’, ‘gravid’ etc) and fitting it into sentences. This love of words is surely Donnelly’s too, as witness this wonderfully accomplished, demanding first novel.