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Introduction and Chapter 1

• A Northern Light opens with a crisis: a young guest of the Glenmore Hotel is pulled from Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks after going boating with her lover.

• The young narrator, Mattie Gokey, a waitress in the hotel, is astonished to discover that the dead woman is Grace Brown, who earlier in the day had given Mattie a bundle of letters to burn.

• In the bustle of her daily duties, Mattie has forgotten about the letters in her apron pocket.

• The narrative of A Northern Light moves back and forth between two timelines; one tracking Mattie's efforts to understand the circumstances behind Grace Brown's death through reading her letters, and one tracing the events in Mattie's life which led to her employment at the Glenmore Hotel.

• Mattie is trying to find the financial means to attend Barnard College in New York City, where she...

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