The Moon by Night
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| dust jacket to the hardcover edition | |
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
|---|---|
| Cover Artist | H. Lawrence Hoffman |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Austin family |
| Subject(s) | Camping, relationships |
| Genre(s) | Young Adult |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus & Giroux |
| Released | 1963 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 218 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-374-35049-3 |
| Preceded by | Meet the Austins |
| Followed by | The Young Unicorns |
The Moon by Night (ISBN 0-374-35049-3) is the title of a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Published in 1963, it is the second novel about Vicky Austin and her family, taking place between the events of Meet the Austins (1960) and The Young Unicorns (1968). The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray, who dates first Vicky and then (in later books) Polly O'Keefe.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
In The Moon by Night (ISBN 0-374-35049-3), Vicky and her family are on a cross-country camping trip, meant to be a transition between their life in rural Thornhill, Connecticut and a very different on in New York City, where Vicky's father, Dr. Wallace Austin, will be doing research. In another big change in Vicky's life, Maggy Hamilton, an orphan who has been living with the Austins since her father's death, is adopted by Vicky's uncle, Douglas Austin, and his his new wife Elena, and moved to California.
Early in the trip, Vicky meets Zachary Gray at a campground. Zach is there with his parents in a luxuriously equipped tent trailer pulled by a brand new black station wagon. Zach then pursues Vicky at other campgrounds across the country, leaving his parents behind to do so. Vicky's father, a doctor, soon realizes that Zachary has a history of rheumatic fever that damaged his heart, and several times orders him to avoid strenuous exercise as he accompanies Vicky and her family in their sightseeing. Vicky finds Zach charming, handsome and intelligent, but also a little frightening in his cynicism and recklessness.
Later in the trip, Vicky meets Andy Ford, another boy who becomes interested in her. Andy is more emotionally stable than Zach and far more cheerful, but also less exciting. Eventually Zach goes missing one evening. As the Austins search for him, Zach lures Vicky to a remote mountainside to speak with her privately about Andy. The two of them become trapped in an avalanche before help arrives.
The novel touches on such themes as the fear of human annihilation, especially nuclear annihilation; the then-imminent changes in sex roles; the power of America; if human beings are basically good or evil; and the existance or non-existance of God. Vicky sees the play The Diary of Anne Frank, and classical music is important in her life. (Elena Austin is a famous classical pianist.) L'Engle is already showing the respect for adolescent intelligence that will be prominent in A Wrinkle In Time and its sequels.
[edit] Awards
- Winner of Austrian State Literary Prize, 1969.
[edit] Background
The novel is based on a real-life camping trip made in the spring of 1959[1] by Madeleine L'Engle and her family, the Franklins, during which she first had the idea for A Wrinkle in Time.[2] Like the Austins, the Franklins took their long vacation during a time of transition between life in a Connecticut farmhouse and relocating to New York City. In her introduction to the current Laurel-Leaf paperback edtions of the Austin family novels, L'Engle states: "Somebody remarked to me that the books about the Austin family might just as well be about my own family. Indeed, the Austins do a great many things that my family did...."[3] L'Engle writes about the Franklin family's camping trip in A Circle of Quiet[4] and in her foreword to the 25th Anniversary Collectors' Edition of A Wrinkle in Time.
[edit] Nomenclature
- Zachary's last name is spelled "Grey" in both hardcover and paperback editions of The Moon by Night, but Gray in subsequent books. In A Ring of Endless Light, Vicky describes his eyes as being "gray, the way is name is spelled" as opposed to "grey".
- The book's title is taken from the King James Version of Psalm 121, which is quoted in chapter 11 of the novel.
[edit] References
- Chase, Carole F. Suncatcher: A Study of Madeleine L'Engle and Her Writing, pg. 170. Innisfree Press, 1998, ISBN 1-880913-31-3
- L'Engle, Madeleine. A Circle of Quiet. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972 ISBN 0-374-12374-8
