The Moon by Night
Encyclopedia
The Moon by Night 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
), and more or less concurrently with the O'Keefe family novel The Arm of the Starfish
. The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray
, who dates first Vicky and then (in later books) Polly O'Keefe
. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in The Moon By Night.
and a very different one 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, goes to live with her legal guardian Elena, who is marrying Vicky's uncle, Douglas Austin. Uncle Douglas and his new family move to Laguna Beach, California
, where Vicky's family is to visit them during their travels. The first chapter begins with the wedding of Elena and Douglas.
The family's adventures show its differences from contemporary society. Along the way it meets a teenage gang in Tennessee
, helps rescue children from a flood in Texas
, and finds an abandoned baby at a campsite in Utah. Vicky's younger sister Suzy grows emotionally during the trip, from wanting to adopt a fawn near the beginning to her later swift and competent rendering of first aid when another child is injured, despite wrong-headed demands by nearby adults. They see bears several times, and though they always act properly, their peers sometimes do not, with dangerous results. They also encounter anti-U.S. sentiment in a campground in Canada and intimations of the Cold War
throughout their journey.
Early in the trip, at a Tennessee campground, Vicky meets Zachary Gray
, who arrives with his parents in a luxuriously equipped tent trailer pulled by a brand new black station wagon. She finds him charming, handsome and intelligent, but also frightening in his cynicism and recklessness. He pursues her (in person and with notes left behind) at other campgrounds across the country and in Laguna Beach. Vicky enjoys this attention, but the rest of her family dislikes Zach. She resents this, torn between obedience to her family and her growing need for independence.
Observing Zachary's paleness and shortness of breath during an interpretive hike in Mesa Verde, Vicky's father, a doctor, deduces that he has a history of rheumatic fever that has damaged his heart. Dr. Austin several times orders the boy to avoid strenuous exercise as he accompanies Vicky and her family in their sightseeing.
Late in the trip, at Yellowstone National Park
, Vicky meets Andy Ford, another boy who becomes interested in her. Andy is more emotionally stable than Zachary and far more cheerful, but also less exciting. Zachary turns up with his parents at the Austins' next destination, in the Black Ram section of Wyoming
, and exhibits jealousy toward Andy. A few hours later, a game of hide and seek
ends with Zachary missing. As the Austins search for him, Zachary lures Vicky to a remote mountainside to speak with her privately about Andy. Vicky turns to return to her family, but is unable to do so after an earthquake
brings down her side of the mountain in an avalanche
. Zachary is trapped between two large rocks with a broken wrist. Vicky comes to terms with her concerns about the precariousness of life and the existence of a loving God, and Zachary promises to take better care of himself. Vicky waits with Zachary until help arrives.
and its sequels. For example, Zachary discusses anthropology
knowledgeably with Vicky, and Classical music
is important in Vicky's life. (Elena Austin is a famous classical pianist.)
Although the chronology of Madeleine L'Engle's Austin family and Murry-O'Keefe books places the events of The Moon by Night decades later, the concerns of the narrative itself are very much of the Cold War
era. Vicky refers to fallout shelter
s, Duck and cover
, and, indirectly, to the involvement of Oak Ridge, Tennessee
in the Manhattan Project
. On several occasions Vicky expresses fear and dismay about the precarious situation in her world.
Beyond these, the major theme and conflict of the story is Vicky's adolescent struggle to establish her own identity as distinct from that of her family, reconciling her existing loyalties with her growing need for independence. As she states in chapter 8: "You have to go off by yourself or you must stop being you, and after all I was just beginning to be me." Having spent her childhood as a happy member of a large family, the fourteen-year-old has recently come to feel that her family was "holding me back, keeping me from growing up and being myself."
During the Austins' stay in Laguna Beach, Zachary takes Vicky to a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank, which leads Vicky to worry about God's apparent failure to protect Anne Frank from man's inhumanity to man. The narrative quotes several times from Psalm 121, particularly the passage from which the novel's title is taken:
Vicky takes note of the use of the psalm as a prayer in the play, just before the Nazis arrest the Frank family. Zachary also urges Vicky to accept his belief that there is no God to protect her. Yet at the end of the novel, despite her earlier ambivalence toward religion, Vicky makes her stand against Zachary's nihilism
, and cries out the words of the psalm as she awaits rescue.
. Like the Austins, the Franklins took their long vacation during a period of transition between life in a Connecticut farmhouse and relocating to New York City. In her introduction to the current Laurel-Leaf paperback editions 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...." L'Engle writes about the Franklin family's camping trip in A Circle of Quiet and in her foreword to the 25th Anniversary Collectors' Edition of A Wrinkle in Time.
and Charles Wallace Murry
. This reference to the events of A Wrinkle in Time, which was published the previous year, may be seen as "breaking the fourth wall
", but alternatively may mean that the Austins are aware of the Murrys' experiences as actual past events. Since Vicky and Meg's daughter, Polly O'Keefe
, both date Zachary Gray
, Vicky and Suzy are referring to events a generation earlier. The Murrys and the Austins live in similarly-described rural settings in Connecticut
, so the Austins' knowledge of the Murrys may be locally-derived.
The Moon by Night takes place about two years (perhaps slightly less) after Meet the Austins
, which begins when Vicky is twelve years old. Vicky is fourteen going on fifteen in The Moon by Night, but initially lies to Zachary that she is sixteen. After the camping trip, the Austins spend approximately a year in New York City, during which they experience the events of The Young Unicorns
, aided by recurring L'Engle character Canon Tallis
. The following summer, in A Ring of Endless Light
, Vicky meets another major L'Engle character, Adam Eddington
, and also renews her relationship with Zachary.
The Austins' camping trip is said to begin in the spring before school lets out. This places the beginning of the novel shortly before the events of The Arm of the Starfish
, in which Adam Eddington takes a summer internship with Calvin O'Keefe
, and must decide whether to trust O'Keefe and Canon Tallis or, alternatively, Kali Cutter (who betrays him). When Adam meets Vicky the following summer, John Austin alludes to Adam's bad experience with Kali.
Young adult literature
Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
novel by Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle
Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time...
. Published in 1963
1963 in literature
The year 1963 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*First United States printing of John Cleland's 1749 novel, Fanny Hill . The book is banned for obscenity, triggering a court case by its publisher.*Leslie Charteris publishes his final collection of stories...
, it is the second novel about Vicky Austin
Vicky Austin
Victoria "Vicky" Austin is one of Madeleine L'Engle's most frequently-used fictional characters, appearing in eight books and referred to in at least one more. She is the main protagonist of the Austin family series of books...
and her family, taking place between the events of Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins is the title of a 1960 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the first of her books about the Austin family. It introduces the characters Vicky Austin and her three siblings, and Maggy Hamilton, an orphan...
(1960
1960 in literature
The year 1960 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 2 – Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case in the United Kingdom....
) and The Young Unicorns
The Young Unicorns
The Young Unicorns is the title of a young adult suspense novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is the third novel about the Austin family, taking place between the events of The Moon by Night and A Ring of Endless Light...
(1968
1968 in literature
The year 1968 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest is published....
), and more or less concurrently with the O'Keefe family novel The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish is a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1965. It is the first novel featuring Polly O'Keefe and the O'Keefe family, a generation after the events of A Wrinkle in Time...
. The book marks the first appearance of the character Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
, who dates first Vicky and then (in later books) Polly O'Keefe
Polly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
. Although Vicky will later appear in three novels that have fantasy and/or science fiction themes, there are no such elements in The Moon By Night.
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, ConnecticutConnecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
and a very different one in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where Vicky's father, Dr. Wallace Austin, will be doing research. In another big change in Vicky's life, Maggy Hamilton, an orphan
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
who has been living with the Austins since her father's death, goes to live with her legal guardian Elena, who is marrying Vicky's uncle, Douglas Austin. Uncle Douglas and his new family move to Laguna Beach, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where Vicky's family is to visit them during their travels. The first chapter begins with the wedding of Elena and Douglas.
The family's adventures show its differences from contemporary society. Along the way it meets a teenage gang in Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, helps rescue children from a flood in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, and finds an abandoned baby at a campsite in Utah. Vicky's younger sister Suzy grows emotionally during the trip, from wanting to adopt a fawn near the beginning to her later swift and competent rendering of first aid when another child is injured, despite wrong-headed demands by nearby adults. They see bears several times, and though they always act properly, their peers sometimes do not, with dangerous results. They also encounter anti-U.S. sentiment in a campground in Canada and intimations of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
throughout their journey.
Early in the trip, at a Tennessee campground, Vicky meets Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
, who arrives with his parents in a luxuriously equipped tent trailer pulled by a brand new black station wagon. She finds him charming, handsome and intelligent, but also frightening in his cynicism and recklessness. He pursues her (in person and with notes left behind) at other campgrounds across the country and in Laguna Beach. Vicky enjoys this attention, but the rest of her family dislikes Zach. She resents this, torn between obedience to her family and her growing need for independence.
Observing Zachary's paleness and shortness of breath during an interpretive hike in Mesa Verde, Vicky's father, a doctor, deduces that he has a history of rheumatic fever that has damaged his heart. Dr. Austin several times orders the boy to avoid strenuous exercise as he accompanies Vicky and her family in their sightseeing.
Late in the trip, at Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
, Vicky meets Andy Ford, another boy who becomes interested in her. Andy is more emotionally stable than Zachary and far more cheerful, but also less exciting. Zachary turns up with his parents at the Austins' next destination, in the Black Ram section of Wyoming
Wyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
, and exhibits jealousy toward Andy. A few hours later, a game of hide and seek
Hide and seek
Hide-and-seek or hide-and-go-seek is a variant of the game tag, in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers.-Variants:Numerous variants of the game can be found around the world...
ends with Zachary missing. As the Austins search for him, Zachary lures Vicky to a remote mountainside to speak with her privately about Andy. Vicky turns to return to her family, but is unable to do so after an earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
brings down her side of the mountain in an avalanche
Avalanche
An avalanche is a sudden rapid flow of snow down a slope, occurring when either natural triggers or human activity causes a critical escalating transition from the slow equilibrium evolution of the snow pack. Typically occurring in mountainous terrain, an avalanche can mix air and water with the...
. Zachary is trapped between two large rocks with a broken wrist. Vicky comes to terms with her concerns about the precariousness of life and the existence of a loving God, and Zachary promises to take better care of himself. Vicky waits with Zachary until help arrives.
Major characters
- Vicky AustinVicky AustinVictoria "Vicky" Austin is one of Madeleine L'Engle's most frequently-used fictional characters, appearing in eight books and referred to in at least one more. She is the main protagonist of the Austin family series of books...
— The heroine of the Austin family series of novels and stories, Vicky is the first person narrator of this book and others. Fourteen years old at the time of the novel, Vicky is beginning to assert her independence from her family, going off by herself to think, questioning her religious upbringing and other attitudes, and learning, through travel and her conversations with Zachary, that the world is much bigger and more diverse than she previously encountered in her sheltered life with her family in rural Thornhill, Connecticut.
- John Austin — Vicky's scientifically-minded older brother, John, has graduated early from high school at approximately age 17, and has been accepted at M.I.T.Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. He is primarily interested in astrophysicsAstrophysicsAstrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
. John is intellectually curious and philosophical, generally loyal and kind-hearted. However, he has a low tolerance for Zachary.
- Suzy Austin — Generally considered the beauty of the family, Suzy "has wanted to be a doctor ever since she could talk." At age eleven, she already knows more about first aidFirst aidFirst aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
than many adults, and puts this knowledge to use without fuss or panic. Suzy is fond of animals, and keeps lists of species encountered on the trip.
- Rob Austin — The youngest of the Austin children, Robert Austin is curious and loving, with a penchant for insightful questions and unintentional wordplay. Madeleine L'Engle has acknowledged that Rob is based on her own youngest child, Bion Franklin.
- Dr. Wallace Austin, or "Wally", is the father of the four Austin children, and elder brother of Douglas Austin, an artist. Their mother died when Douglas was born, and their father also died early. Wallace is a "country doctor" in general practice, who also does research when he can. As of The Moon by Night, he has temporarily turned his practice over to another doctor so he can spend a year conducting research at a New York City hospital.
- Victoria Austin, Vicky's mother and namesake, is the daughter of Reverend Eaton, a popular minister who also spent time as a missionaryMissionaryA missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
in Africa. Victoria attended boarding schoolBoarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
in Switzerland, where she met her best friend Elena, who eventually marries Douglas Austin. Victoria briefly sang professionally, and an album was made of her songs. She met Wallace Austin while singing to injured soldiers at a Veterans AdministrationUnited States Department of Veterans AffairsThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
hospital.
- Zachary GrayZachary GrayZachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
— Student. Extremely affluent but directionless, Zachary, a student who was recently "kicked out" of HotchkissHotchkiss SchoolThe Hotchkiss School is an independent, coeducational American college preparatory boarding school located in Lakeville, Connecticut. Founded in 1891, the school enrolls students in grades 9 through 12 and a small number of postgraduates...
, vacillates between his desires for redemption and self-destruction. Charming, exciting, unpredictable and emotionally needy, Zach brings out both the best and worst in Vicky. Zachary shows a strong interest in anthropologyAnthropologyAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and is quite knowledgeable on the subject, but rejects it as a possible profession because "there's no money in it." He has a damaged heart as the result of rheumatic fever, but refuses to see any more doctors and is not sure there is any point in trying to stay alive in a troubled world.
Themes
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; the question of whether human beings are basically good or evil; and the existence or non-existence of God. L'Engle's narrative shows the same respect for adolescent intelligence that is prominent in A Wrinkle In TimeA Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
and its sequels. For example, Zachary discusses anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
knowledgeably with Vicky, and Classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
is important in Vicky's life. (Elena Austin is a famous classical pianist.)
Although the chronology of Madeleine L'Engle's Austin family and Murry-O'Keefe books places the events of The Moon by Night decades later, the concerns of the narrative itself are very much of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
era. Vicky refers to fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
s, Duck and cover
Duck and cover
Duck and Cover was a suggested method of personal protection against the effects of a nuclear weapon which the United States government taught to generations of United States school children from the early 1950s into the 1980s. This was supposed to protect them in the event of an unexpected nuclear...
, and, indirectly, to the involvement of Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...
in the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. On several occasions Vicky expresses fear and dismay about the precarious situation in her world.
Beyond these, the major theme and conflict of the story is Vicky's adolescent struggle to establish her own identity as distinct from that of her family, reconciling her existing loyalties with her growing need for independence. As she states in chapter 8: "You have to go off by yourself or you must stop being you, and after all I was just beginning to be me." Having spent her childhood as a happy member of a large family, the fourteen-year-old has recently come to feel that her family was "holding me back, keeping me from growing up and being myself."
During the Austins' stay in Laguna Beach, Zachary takes Vicky to a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank, which leads Vicky to worry about God's apparent failure to protect Anne Frank from man's inhumanity to man. The narrative quotes several times from Psalm 121, particularly the passage from which the novel's title is taken:
- The sun shall not smite thee by day,
- Nor the moon by night.
- The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil;
- He shall preserve thy soul.
Vicky takes note of the use of the psalm as a prayer in the play, just before the Nazis arrest the Frank family. Zachary also urges Vicky to accept his belief that there is no God to protect her. Yet at the end of the novel, despite her earlier ambivalence toward religion, Vicky makes her stand against Zachary's nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, and cries out the words of the psalm as she awaits rescue.
Background and context
The novel is based on a real-life camping trip made in the spring of 1959 by Madeleine L'Engle and her family, the Franklins, during which she first had the idea for A Wrinkle in TimeA Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962. The story revolves around a young girl whose father, a government scientist, has gone missing after working on a mysterious project called a tesseract. The book won a Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and...
. Like the Austins, the Franklins took their long vacation during a period of transition between life in a Connecticut farmhouse and relocating to New York City. In her introduction to the current Laurel-Leaf paperback editions 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...." L'Engle writes about the Franklin family's camping trip in A Circle of Quiet and in her foreword to the 25th Anniversary Collectors' Edition of A Wrinkle in Time.
Related works
At one point in The Moon by Night, Suzy Austin makes a joke about "tessering", and Vicky's first person narrative identifies this comment as relating to the story of MegMeg Murry
Margaret "Meg" Murry O'Keefe is the main character and main protagonist in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet of Science fantasy novels, the daughter of two scientists, the sister of twins Sandy and Dennys Murry and telepath Charles Wallace Murry, and the mother of Polly O'Keefe and others in the...
and Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry
Charles Wallace Murry is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's young adult science fiction novels A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, sometimes referred to as the Time Trilogy...
. This reference to the events of A Wrinkle in Time, which was published the previous year, may be seen as "breaking the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
", but alternatively may mean that the Austins are aware of the Murrys' experiences as actual past events. Since Vicky and Meg's daughter, Polly O'Keefe
Polly O'Keefe
Polyhymnia O'Keefe is the protagonist of the Madeleine L'Engle novels A House Like a Lotus and An Acceptable Time, and a major character in two previous books, The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters. The eldest daughter of Meg Murry O'Keefe and Dr...
, both date Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray
Zachary Gray is a fictional character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle...
, Vicky and Suzy are referring to events a generation earlier. The Murrys and the Austins live in similarly-described rural settings in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, so the Austins' knowledge of the Murrys may be locally-derived.
The Moon by Night takes place about two years (perhaps slightly less) after Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins
Meet the Austins is the title of a 1960 novel by Madeleine L'Engle, the first of her books about the Austin family. It introduces the characters Vicky Austin and her three siblings, and Maggy Hamilton, an orphan...
, which begins when Vicky is twelve years old. Vicky is fourteen going on fifteen in The Moon by Night, but initially lies to Zachary that she is sixteen. After the camping trip, the Austins spend approximately a year in New York City, during which they experience the events of The Young Unicorns
The Young Unicorns
The Young Unicorns is the title of a young adult suspense novel by Madeleine L'Engle. It is the third novel about the Austin family, taking place between the events of The Moon by Night and A Ring of Endless Light...
, aided by recurring L'Engle character Canon Tallis
Canon Tallis
Canon John Tallis is a major character in the young adult novels of Madeleine L'Engle, appearing in four books. The character is based on L'Engle's real-life spiritual advisor, Canon Edward Nason West of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City....
. The following summer, in A Ring of Endless Light
A Ring of Endless Light
A Ring of Endless Light is a 1980 novel by Madeleine L'Engle. The book tells of a girl named Vicky and her struggle to understand life and significance in the universe as she deals with her dying grandfather, while at the same time finding love....
, Vicky meets another major L'Engle character, Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington
Adam Eddington III is a major character in three young adult novels by Madeleine L'Engle. A marine biology student, he is the protagonist of The Arm of the Starfish , and a reluctant love interest for Vicky Austin in A Ring of Endless Light , a relationship that continues in Troubling a Star...
, and also renews her relationship with Zachary.
The Austins' camping trip is said to begin in the spring before school lets out. This places the beginning of the novel shortly before the events of The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish
The Arm of the Starfish is a young adult novel by Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1965. It is the first novel featuring Polly O'Keefe and the O'Keefe family, a generation after the events of A Wrinkle in Time...
, in which Adam Eddington takes a summer internship with Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe
Calvin O'Keefe is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet series of books, and, as "Dr. Calvin O'Keefe", an important character in her O'Keefe series of young adult novels. In an interview released on the DVD of the TV adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, L'Engle describes Calvin as "the...
, and must decide whether to trust O'Keefe and Canon Tallis or, alternatively, Kali Cutter (who betrays him). When Adam meets Vicky the following summer, John Austin alludes to Adam's bad experience with Kali.
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.