Synopses & Reviews
This soul-stirring, courageous memoir explores the fierce beauty of isolation and the depths of a mother's love for her autistic son who stops sleeping through the night.
Unfolding over the witching hours between midnight and 6:00 am, this meditative book takes place during the two-year period in which the author's son, Gabriel, who also has Down Syndrome, did not sleep through the night. Told as interwoven memories, the book describes Gabriel's childhood and Maria's own entrance into the world of multiple disability parenting. There are gifts from Gabriel's complex mind that balance out the hardships--in this two-year period his mother notices the releasing power of jazz music on her son and takes him to jazz clubs at all hours of the night, where he quickly becomes a favorite patron.
As a counterpoint to understanding the figurative isolation that keeps Gabriel apart, Maria offers the story of Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer who journeyed alone into the utter wilderness of the South Pole. His story creates a shared and powerful language for the experience of feeling alone. In the three main characters--mother, son, adventuring explorer--Maria reveals overlapping and layered themes of solitude that enlighten and uplift one another.
Much more than a book about coping with a mentally ill child, Know the Night is about the distances that can form between people who should be the closest of all--husband and wife, parent and child, lifelong friends and partners. The reader becomes a companion in Maria's isolation rather than simply an observer as the book transcends its subject matter by shining a light onto a universal human experience.
Review
“Mutch details her life in the wee hours of the morning and eloquently draws parallels between the challenges of raising a child with significant disabilities and Byrd’s experiences while utterly alone on his South Pole expedition. This fascinating thought-provoking book provides a unique opportunity to understand the love between a mother and child, and how that bond creates both chaos and strength. It should be required reading for anyone who works with a child with disabilities and recommended reading for everyone else. It is educational, entertaining, and absolutely unique. I guarantee you will enjoy every sentence of this book. Know the Night is such a literary gift.”
Review
"From the moment I opened this book, I felt pulled into a uniquely scintillating world, one built of ice crystals, poetic aurorae, starscapes shimmering with jazz, and a boy whose body sings and storms through the night. Mutch writes gorgeously, transcendently, but with the hard packed earth of wisdom underfoot. For anyone who has ever walked the night with their child or their fragile self, there is company here. And for anyone curious to know what love and grace feel like when they are pressed into pages, this is your book."
Review
"Know the Night is a wonderful book. Thoughtful and poetic and moving, sometimes troubling and sad, without ever being gloomy. Deeply personal, but enriched by the juxtaposition of Byrd's struggle with solitude and the long polar night. It has stayed with me, and I'm grateful to have been taken along on the author's journey."
Review
"Know The Night offers a magnificent vision of amother's love--a love sculpted from jazz and ice and dreams; a love largeenough to hold the darkness between midnight and dawn, large enough to holdmultiple diagnoses and the vast margins of what they can't describe- largeenough to hold the story of a polar explorer and his months alone in anotherkind of night. This memoir finds a candid, capacious language--always curious,often stunning--for the states of mystery and wonder at its core."
Review
"A moving memoir of maternal love and devotion, Know the Night, explores isolation and loneliness in beautifully imagistic prose. The sleepless parent of a wordless child, Maria Mutch finds solace in the experience of explorer Admiral Richard Byrd as he struggled alone in continual night at the South Pole. Mutch weaves Byrd’s fascinating narrative like a spell into her own deeply affecting story of mothering a child with autism and Down Syndrome. This is a book full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."
Review
“[A] poetic, elegant, and intense account.”
Review
“[A] hopeful story… absorbing and creatively rendered.”
Review
Know the Night is an impressive debut for author Maria Mutch, whose literary memoir maintains that magical balance between lyricism and realism.... very universal and lovely, and utterly worth the read.
Review
"Wise... a compassionate picture..."
Review
"A beautiful, singular book, one that someone who’s planning, say, a prolonged stay in a godforsaken place might consider bringing along so they don’t feel quite so alone."
Review
"[S]uperb writing and linguistic flair..."
Review
"Know the Night is an exhibition of literary eloquence, a tale set in darkness, but filled with light, and a moving debut memoir about maternal love — its beauty and strength, its complications and contradictions, and most importantly, its boundlessness."
Review
“There are moments of heartrending grief, such as when Gabriel says his last words… but it's Mutch herself, revealing her struggle to survive as a person, that leaves you astonished.”
Synopsis
This soul-stirring debut memoir explores the experience of isolation and the miraculous power of care and communication in its midst.
In this soul-stirring debut memoir, Maria Mutch explores the miraculous power that care and communication have in the face of the deep, personal isolation that often comes with disability. A chronicle of the witching hours between midnight and six a.m., this meditative book takes place during the twoyear period in which Mutch's son Gabriel, who is autistic and also has Down syndrome, rarely slept through the night. In this tapestry composed of interwoven memories, we see both Gabriel's difficult childhood and Maria's introduction to the world of multiple disability parenting.
As a counterpoint to Gabriel's figurative isolation is the story of Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer who journeyed alone into the Antarctic wilderness in the 1930s. His story creates a shared and powerful language for the experience of feeling alone.
In these three characters--mother, son, and explorer--Mutch reveals overlapping and layered themes of solitude that, far from driving us apart, enlighten, uplift, and connect.
Synopsis
In this soul-stirring debut memoir, Maria Mutch explores the miraculous power that care and communication have in the face of the deep, personal isolation that often comes with disability. A chronicle of the witching hours between midnight and six a.m., this meditative book takes place during the twoyear period in which Mutch’s son Gabriel, who is autistic and also has Down syndrome, rarely slept through the night. In this tapestry composed of interwoven memories, we see both Gabriel’s difficult childhood and Maria’s introduction to the world of multiple disability parenting.
As a counterpoint to Gabriel’s figurative isolation is the story of Admiral Richard Byrd, the polar explorer who journeyed alone into the Antarctic wilderness in the 1930s. His story creates a shared and powerful language for the experience of feeling alone.
In these three characters—mother, son, and explorer—Mutch reveals overlapping and layered themes of solitude that, far from driving us apart, enlighten, uplift, and connect.
About the Author
Maria Mutch holds a BFA from York University and has received a Toronto Arts Council Writers Grant and a finalist's citation in the Canadian National Magazine Awards. Mutch lives in Rhode Island with her husband and two sons, one of whom has Down Syndrome and Autism and is the source of much inspiration. Know the Night is her first book.