The Northern Lights

by Howard Norman

After his friend drowns, fifteen-year-old Noah Krainik decides to leave his childhood and hometown in the frozen wilderness of Northern Manitoba and journey to a new life in the city of Toronto

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Young Adult, Coming Of Age

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Howard A. Norman (born 1949), is an American award-winning writer and educator. Most of his short stories and novels are set in Canada's Maritime Provinces. He has written several translations of Algonquin, Cree, Eskimo, and Inuit folklore. His books have been translated into 12 languages.

Reviews

[Howard · Rating 4 out of 5]

REREAD

Melancholy
1. depression of spirits; 2. dejection; 3. a pensive mood

“’What good is intelligence,’ Japanese writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke remarked, ‘if you can’t discover a useful melancholy?’ I am reminded by this of my attempt, while writing The Northern Lights, to create a melancholic atmosphere breathed by characters in a story set where I’d spent considerable time, northern Manitoba, a riverine, forest, and taiga expanse in which, as a Jesuit missionary wrote, ‘staggering winters take up residence in one’s heart’ and 'summers are as fleeting as a dream.’” – Howard Norman, Introduction to The Northern Lights
******

I’m not sure what point Ryunosuke was making in his question about melancholy, but I believe that Norman did. I have read his first three novels and all are bathed in a melancholic atmosphere. The setting of his debut novel, The Northern Lights (northern Manitoba for most of the story), and his second novel, The Bird Artist (Newfoundland), would tend to be a damper on euphoria and lead one to melancholic thoughts and actions.

But there is more to it than the natural environment, though that is important. Norman agrees with the Hungarian essayist, László F. Földényi, who has written that “[m]elancholics live in the same world as other people, yet they do not see the same world.”

Life has a way of causing people to see a different world – and that is certainly true of Norman’s characters. One or both parents leave them at an early age, either through freakish accidents, suicide, or disappearance. Norman describes his own father as one who made “cameo appearances” in his family’s life, much like the father in The Northern Lights. In fact, when Norman’s father died he had not seen him in twenty years.

His protagonist in The Museum Guard lost both parents when they died in a zeppelin crash, and in a later novel, What is Left of the Daughter, that I have not yet read, the protagonist loses both parents when they commit suicide by jumping off separate bridges on the same night – because they both loved the same woman.

It isn’t surprising then that The Northern Lights opens with a freakish loss for young Noah Krainik:

My father brought home a radio. ‘It’s got a sender and a receiver,’ he said. ‘Now you can talk to people other than yourselves.’ He fit the earphones over my head. And the first news I heard was that my friend Pelly Bay had drowned. Pelly had fallen through the ice while riding his unicycle. That was April 1958.

Norman says this incident was based on the loss of a childhood friend, who died due to an illness rather than an accident, but that it nevertheless is the most clearly autobiographical incident in any of his fiction.

In this novel, as in the other two that I have read, it isn’t all doom and gloom. It seems to me that of the three definitions of melancholy that begins the review that when Norman speaks or writes of the condition that he leans heavily toward the third, and away from the first two.

His stories feature offbeat characters, zany situations, and an air of mystery and humor that prevent them from becoming depressing experiences for the reader. However, those ingredients, added to a melancholic atmosphere, may explain why he has never attained general popularity even though his first two novels were finalists for National Book Awards.

It could be that his writing is an acquired taste, and if so, one that I have acquired.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Norman is a really underrated writer and I’m a big fan of The Bird Artist and especially I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place. This is a weird one; it’s his debut and you can see the autobiographical inspiration (per his Introduction) and the sorts of interests that would recur across his oeuvre, such as subarctic Canada and its Indigenous peoples, absent fathers and hotels (not the only reason this reminded me most of early John Irving).

The Canadian settings represent the two poles of isolation and the urban: Quill, Manitoba versus Toronto in 1959–60. The novel opens with the death of teenage Noah’s best friend, Pelly, who fell through a frozen lake while riding his unicycle. Noah’s family dynamic changes quickly, as his cousin Charlotte, orphaned by a factory disaster, comes to live with them and then his cartographer father leaves them to become a hermit in a remote cabin furnished with musical instruments. Noah stays with Pelly’s parents, Sam and Hettie (a Cree woman), to brave a harsh Quill winter –

January and February mornings you would get a crack of icy static in the nostrils when first stepping outside and have to shade your eyes against the harsh glint of snow, if the sun had worked its way through. Certain days neighbors were seen only on their way to their woodsheds. Chimney smoke was our windsocks. Enormous drifts had built up against the houses, sculpted in various shapes. Even brief walks were taken on snowshoes. Winter might be seven months long.

– while his mother, Mina, takes Charlotte to Toronto to run The Northern Lights, the movie theatre where she met her husband as a young woman. The previous alcoholic owner has run it into the ground; “the curtain smelled like a ten-thousand-year-old moose hide.”

At the time that Noah joins them, he’s never seen a movie before, but as “manager” of the theatre he soon sees The Magnificent Seven 15 times in quick succession. Norman does a peculiar thing here, which is to introduce a key character quite late on in the action. Noah hires Levon, a Cree man, to be the projectionist and he promptly moves his entire family into the building. Had Noah relocated to Toronto earlier, we might have seen more of these characters. Norman’s habit of mimicking broken speech from non-native speakers through overly frequent commas (indicating pauses, I suppose) irked me. There are lots of quirky elements here and I enjoyed the overall atmosphere, but felt the plot left something to be desired. I’d start elsewhere with Norman, but could still recommend this to readers of Robertson Davies and Elizabeth Hay.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Bart · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is impossible for me to review this book's "literary merit", because it fell into my lap at such a pivotal time for me personally, and it was the perfect story for that moment. I read about the protagonist hunting geese in Toronto's High Park and "living on the land" in the centre of a metropolis, while I was camping for three months in Toronto's most beautiful places, in preparation for going to Canada's far north on what turned into the major journey of my life. That was 25 years ago, but above all the tale illustrates for me that the north wind that blows through Toronto's ravines is the same wind that sweeps snow across the tundra and polishes the ice on a million lakes.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second book by this author. I enjoyed his book set in the outposts of Canada about a young boy living in a place called Quill which is out in the middle of nowhere, literally. His father and mother live in a place equally isolated and he comes to live in Quill for the summer. It is a story of loss and growing up. The Northern Lights is a theater in Toronto where his father and mother met and then the life of the theater comes back into the story as our young man, Noah, finds himself there as well. This is a story of the people of Canada, those who live isolated lives, those who live hard lives. When Noah and the people lose someone in a tragic accident, they all grieve in different ways and the character of each person is shown.

I have grown fond of this author's work and am reading his other books as well. They depict interesting characters in interesting places that I have not read before. I see similar characters and aspects of their lives from the influence of radio and arts such as bird carving/painting to other native crafts. Very interesting! On to the next one, THE BIRD ARTIST.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read other books by Howard Norman I was delighted to find another one that I hadn't read. I was not disappointed. I could see in this book how Norman's skill matured into what is in my opinion his best work (The Bird Artist). Norman's prose is spare. His characters are wonderfully drawn, each with particular details, manner of speaking and physicality. The story is at once tragic and uplifting. Noah, the main character, journeys far from home and those he loves, then is reunited with them but in a new and unsettling setting. I loved the first part of the book best; the characters in remote Quill are remarkable and unforgettable. If you aren't familiar with Norman's work, begin to explore this quite wonderful author's books. He is not as well known or as widely read as I think he should be. And to my delight I had the great good luck to meet him a few years ago at a reading he did in my home-town. Quite a treat!

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noah lives with his mother Mina, father Anthony, and his cousin Charlotte in Paduola Lake, Manitoba. His father brought the family there so he could work as a map maker for the government, however, his father's absence for years at a time causes great anxiety in his mother and the rest of the family. Noah spends his summers in Quill, a short commuter plane ride away, with Sam, Hettie, and their nephew Pelly. Pelly's sudden accidental death deeply affects the residents of Quill, and particularly, Hettie. Noah's discovery of his father's secret life allows him to vent the anger he has bottled up for years and forces the small family to make a drastic change. In this nominee for the National Book Award for Fiction, Norman creates a mesmerizing world filled with interesting characters, including a number of Cree.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fifth book by Canadian writer Howard Norman that I have read and the only one that won a National Book Award. To be honest, I think his book The Bird Artist is his best book, or maybe it’s just reached a moment in time where that quirky writing style more appreciated. One of the complaints about Norman’s writing is he seems emotionally detached, but most of the stories are about his family life and his parents were emotionally and logistically distant people. In fact I don’t think he knew where his father was half the time, and his mother shipped young Howard off to go live with a distant family. So I can see where that coolness comes from but if you want to read this author’s books start with The Bird Artist.

[Sophy H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very clever story in which not much really happens, but everything happens.

Howard Norman is my male equivalent of Elizabeth Strout in that he has that uncanny ability to quickly create fleshy, flawed, real characters who don't necessarily "do" or experience anything extraordinary, but their response to life situations make for amazing reading.

I've been reading this in short bursts on my breaks in work and it has been a welcome distraction.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Our house in northern Manitoba made up the entire village of Paduola Lake. We were on the map only because of my father's work as a cartographer..." (11).
" 'Meet you in the store, okay? I don't like watching people pack suitcases'" (38).
“Right away in the hallway is a silent butler. It’s a wooden pole with metal hooks on it, to hang coats on” (137). *I’ve never heard the term “silent butler” before and I’m charmed.
“The heat comes out of a radiator. Steam heat. Remember the accordion from the encyclopedia? A radiator looks something like that, except it’s larger and made of iron” (138).

*I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, but the middle lagged, and I was actually quite bored by the end. Clearly Norman became a better novel writer over the years.

[Manatee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can there be a book more captivating than the author's book, Next Life Might be Kinder? Perhaps this one did not captivate me as much as that poignant, unsettling, beautiful, quirky noirish love story, but I still found it supremely lovable. I just loved all the character's in Quill because they were well-drawn complete Cree characters. I was also fascinated by Mina and Charlotte's life and their strange adventures in Toronto as theater owners. Of course, tragic Pelly Bay and his unicycle created an unforgettable image in my mind. I discovered this author utterly by accident and have fallen in love with his work. I am amazed at how different his novels are from each other. Everyone please read Howard Norman!

[Neil Desmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a masterpiece. It is about a young boy who experiences an unconventional upbringing in northern Canada, tinged with tragedy. His eventual journey to Toronto is a metaphor for his coming of age experience as a teenager. One chapter is comprised entirely of letters between two characters, a brilliant way to reveal their respective personalities to the reader. Along with the rest of the book, this chapter is crafted expertly by Mr. Norman, a two time National Book Award Finalist. I highly recommend this book.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written, if occasionally slow, coming-of age novel. Loved the setting and characters in rural Canada, got kind of bored when the family moved to Toronto.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Others have described Howard Norman's books as quiet and melancholy; in the preface to The Northern Lights Norman writes that he wanted the landscape to be a character. These two managed to make something special happen, some mood or atmosphere that comes over the reader as he or she escapes into the pages of this book.

This book is primarily set in northern Manitoba in 1958-59 and ends in Toronto. It is a coming-of-age story about Noah Krainik who loses his best friend when he is 14 years old. Noah and his mother and cousin live in a town that is only on a map b/c Noah's father was a cartographer - they were the only inhabitants of the town. Noah's dad would leave for long periods, isolating the family even further. Noah's mother decides to leave for the city, and they start working at the theater, The Northern Lights.

In an interview, Norman mentioned his interest in the life of the interior vs exterior. We are alone in our heads, thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing - something especially true for the artist, the writer. This interior can also be thought of re: the domestic. In our homes, we are in a confined space that is small, narrow, claustrophobic where we are brought up against the others with whom we live. Norman's Canadian exteriors, on the other hand, are vast.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve taken to not marking up my books as I read them. It makes them less valuable to others, I thought, by those that will inherit or buy them after me. Some books, though, beg to be underlined and thought more deeply about. Northern Lights is one of them.
This story takes place in northern Manitoba. I felt at home in this cold, and isolated Canada, this place of contrasts and harmonies.
The narrator is Noah, whose father is often absent. Noah visits each year with Pelly and his Cree family in the nearby village of Quill, a fictional village inhabited by natives, and white families. Pelly has a dream of being a travelling unicyclist performer with Noah as his announcer. From the beginning we learn that Pelly suffers a fatal accident.
Noah leaves northern Manitoba to be reunited with his mother and cousin in Toronto, to work with them in a theatre called Northern Lights. To work under a dome of an Indian panorama of native history, where a figure in blue crumbles off the plaster. In a stunning moment of understanding though, Noah realizes his friend was a great man of vision.
I think this novel is worthy of being studied in Canadian schools. Go ahead, mark it up!

[John Benson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book along with his memoir, IN FOND REMEMBRANCE OF ME, and saw that both of these books grew out of a time that the author spent in Churchill, Manitoba in the Fall of 1977 recording Inuit takes on the Noah and the Ark story. The hero of this first novel by Howard Norman is Noah Krainik, who lives on an isolated lake in northern Manitoba with his mother and his cousin. Noah's father drops in now and then as pilots fly him to different places to map the north country. Noah is also pulled in to the lives of another nearby village, when it is suggested he might enjoy getting to know Pelly, who lives on another lake and he is flown there for three summers to spend time with Pelly and his Cree parents. Unfortunately, Pelly dies in a tragic accident and Noah decides to spend time with Pelly's parents in their grief. Later, after his mother and cousin move to Toronto, he joins them and helps run the movie theater that they have bought, called The Northern Lights. It does not have much plot, but the setting and characters are very interesting.

[Laurel Deloria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, the characters were intriguing, the locale educational, the introduction -for me- to the Cree culture was enlightening, the writing crisp,( I didn't want to use my red pen ever in this book-this seldom occurs), the plot was good.

Amazon says:In the frozen wilderness of northern Manitoba, fourteen-year-old Noah Krainik lives with his mother and cousin. With his quirky, cheerful best friend, Pelly Bay, he explores this exotic, lonely land—the domain of Cree Indians, trappers, missionaries, and fugitives from the modern world. When tragedy strikes, Noah must go on alone, discovering a new life in the south and the bustling of Toronto. It is there in the Northern Lights movie theatre—with a Cree family taking up residence in the projection booth, and the reappearance of his elusive father—that Noah becomes an adult.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot read too much by Howard Norman. "The Northern Lights" is set in the far north of Canada where the humans are dwarfed by the vast expanse of forest and tundra. Here gather people from multiple countries who share the land and the life with the native Cree. Connections to the south are tenuous, provided by radio, bush plane and the telephone at the Hudson Bay Company store. Norman's characters are always unusual. There is a sense of mystery, of behaviour unexplained, of the isolation of a way of life. The writing is a less burnished than later novels, but the characters stay with the reader as they are often outsiders by choice.

[Barbara Penzner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written with straightforward clarity, this spare novel creeps up on you with surprising, yet natural, plot developments. Characters appear briefly yet linger throughout until the very last paragraph. I had the pleasure of meeting the author in April 2024, just outside Montpelier, Vermont on the day of the total solar eclipse. I found his quiet, gracious hospitality captivating and drew me to this book, published in 1987. Well worth the visit. And the eclipse.

[Rona Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisite. Unlike any other book I have ever read. The portion of the book that is set in remote northern Canada built a new landscape and culture in my mind, one I'll enjoy having and visiting. The portion that takes place in a city has less magic.

Howard Norman loves his characters tenderly. He is marvelous.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to get into the story of Noah, a young boy growing up in the far northern regions of Canada in the 1950s and 60s as he grows older and expands his world, but by the end I was totally charmed and wrapped up in the story. The book mixes the fantastic with real world hardship.

[Jake Bittle]

Has all the confidence and idiosyncrasy that a first novel should have, and few of the blind spots that first novels often have. And so Canadian.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

i remember having to read this for school and it left a mark on me, tho i cant recall why. ill update this review when i get the chance to reread this book.

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just under 4 stars.

The landscape and stark images of the lifestyle in mid-20th century Northern Canada are well drawn in Norman's novel, THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. In the first section, in Noah's point of view, time slips in and out around the defining moment of the death of Noah's friend Pelly. Although this section took me longer to read, it is more engaging and compelling than the following section told through letters between Noah and his cousin Charlotte. The final section, back in Noah's point of view, moves quickly but has some less compelling moments than the slower life/slower story from the beginning. This gives it a slight feeling of being rushed toward a tidy ending (although it's not completely filled in). An enjoyable read, and a wonderful sketch of a specific location.

[Savannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters in this story were what made it truly fun to read. The main character, Noah, had a typical teenage view on life but interacted with the other characters in a way that made the relationships feel genuine and realistic.
The story took surprising turns that seemed sudden but ultimately added up to a cohesive and enlightening narrative. Noah and his best friend Pelly, along with his cousin Charlotte and all of the adult characters in the novel had fully developed backgrounds and the story never lagged.
The dialogue suited each characters background and added a layer of believability to their interactions.
Overall this story was entertaining and when I finished it I felt like the sorry had come full circle but still ended naturally for the characters.

[Duc · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mentioned that I’ve been reading Steves’s humour column in DIYplanners. Recently, I befriended Stephen (Steves) Sharam, the writer behind those entertaining columns. It all started when I had asked Douglas Johnston about Nova Scotia. He moved from there long ago so I told me to ask Stephen. (As a boy, I had read Howard Norman’s fiction set in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia. Everytime my Wife and I fly over Halifax, on our way to Poland, my heart skips a beat. As the on board monitor shows a map of our flight plan, I try to peer out into the cold and try to imagine what it’s like to live there.) The following is an exchanges of messages in our Facebook accounts.

[Karson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm trying to get into canadian fiction. Random I guess. The place is just so frickin huge and barron, especially up northy north. This story is told partly in northern Manitoba and partly in Toronto. It's about a kid named Noah who's dad is a tool, and mom is pretty cool, and cousin (Charlotte) is a good companion, more like a sister than a cousin. Grows up half in Quill and half in Padoula Lake (both quaint northern Manitoba settings,) then moves to Toronto with his Mother and cousin. It's good simple storytelling, and I am looking forward to more Canadian novels to compare it with.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful characters. Norman manages to create vivid personalities with the briefest of details (like their deaf neighbor Iona with her vases). The one exception was Anthony Krainik, Noah's father. His personality, his motivations, seemed less like intentional mysteries than unintentional confusion. He didn't make sense to me either alone or as part of the story/family.

Otherwise, it is a lovely story about survival and re-creation after tragedy and loss.

[Sherelyn Ernst · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the characters and setting in this book. Canada is so close, and I've seen quite a bit of it, but although Canadians are clearly not Americans, I'm never sure quite how they are different. Of course, in the end, we're all alike, this book helps me understand some aspect of where some of them are coming from. The isolated wilderness setting and earlier time period was unfamiliar to me and fascinating. The characters were real and interesting. It was well worth reading.

[Lesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the third or fourth book by Howard Norman that I've read and it's just as good as the others even thought it was his first novel. He is a Canadian and the books are about Canadian people, both Caucasian and Cree, and often take place in sparsely populated places such as northern Manitoba. They are quiet books, beautifully written. Try one. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

[Jacqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book. Interesting story of a young Canadian boy growing up in the backwoods and the many twists and turns life takes him. Enjoyed the cultural references and information about the 'Cree' people.