The Luminaries is a 2013 novel by Eleanor Catton. Set in New Zealand'sSouth Island in 1866, the novel follows Walter Moody, a prospector who travels to the West Coast settlement of Hokitika to make his fortune on the goldfields. Instead, he stumbles into a tense meeting between twelve local men, and is drawn into a complex mystery involving a series of unsolved crimes. The novel has won many awards and honours, including the 2013 Man Booker Prize. It was adapted into a BBC Two/TVNZ miniseries in 2020.
Plot
The story begins with one of the book's protagonists, Walter Moody, arriving in the smoking room of the Crown Hotel after having encountered a horrific sight on his ride to Hokitika. There, he meets the twelve men who become the protagonists of the book: Te Rau Tauwhare, Charlie Frost, Edgar Clinch, Benjamin Lowenthal, Cowell Devlin, Sook Yongsheng, Aubert Gascoigne, Joseph Pritchard, Thomas Balfour, Harald Nilssen, Quee Long, and Dick Mannering. The twelve men inform Walter Moody about the events that have happened leading up to the current night. Crosbie Wells, a hermit of no ordinary notice, was found dead in his cabin, from an apparently peaceful death. However, upon inspection, his cabin had several thousand pounds' worth of gold hidden inside it. Cowell Devlin found a letter which states that Emery Staines, a rich and well-liked man in Hokitika who has recently gone missing himself, was to pay 2,000 pounds to Anna Wetherell, a prostitute well known for frequenting the Chinatown areas of Hokitika, with Crosbie Wells presiding. The man who appears to be at the centre of all these occurrences is named Francis Carver, a violent person who coincidentally captained the ship in which Moody came to Hokitika. There is also a politician named Alistair Lauderback visiting town, himself a shipping magnate, who seems to be wrapped up in the mystery as well. Their council is interrupted by one of Dick Mannering's servants telling them the Godspeed, Carver's ship, and the one that Moody took, has foundered just off-shore. Three weeks later, the wreckage of Godspeed is pulled up onto shore. Moody, however, mistakenly receives Alistair Lauderback's trunk, in which he finds letters revealing that Crosbie appears to be Lauderback's half-brother. Lydia Wells, Crosbie Wells's widow and Carver's mistress, also arrives in town to collect the money found in Crosbie Wells's cabin, as it is legally hers. While waiting for the claims to be processed, she plans to hold a séance to contact the ghost of Emery Staines. To do so, she hires Anna, who has recently given up prostitution. Lydia claims to know her from when she first arrived in Dunedin. Ah Sook, Anna's previous opium dealer, goes to visit her. However, he recognizes both Lydia and Carver, who happens to be there at the time. Ah Sook had sworn revenge on Carver years earlier for murdering his father, and he will not rest until Carver is dead. After the séance, Sook goes to the hotel Carver is in to attempt to murder him. However, before he can execute his revenge, he is shot by George Shepard, the Gaoler, in an act of revenge for his brother, who he believes was killed by Ah Sook. On the very same night, Emery Staines appears in Crosbie Wells's cabin gravely wounded. Te Rau Tauwhare brings him back to town to get medical attention, and he lives. He is reunited with Anna, who has also suffered some kind of injury, as it appears the two of them have fallen in love. Both of their conditions rapidly improve. After Staines has recovered, all living characters end up being called into a trial in Hokitika. The trial reveals the truths behind the crimes. It is revealed that Carver killed Crosbie Wells by drugging him with laudanum, Emery Staines cheated Carver out of his money, and much more. After the trial is over, Staines is sentenced to nine months of hard labour, Carver to years in prison, and Anna is acquitted. However, on the way to the prison, Carver's head is bashed in by Te Rau Tauwhare, using a greenstone, as vengeance for his old friend Crosbie Wells. All living characters serve their sentences and Walter Moody finally leaves Hokitika to begin to prospect for gold.
Characters
Each of the twelve men who comprise the council in the first chapter of the book is associated with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The title of a chapter in which one of these men plays a major role invariably bears that man's sign. The associations are as follows:
The conventional characteristics associated with each sign serve as a skeleton upon which Catton builds to create fully fledged characters. Te Rau Tauwhare is the only name on the list based on a real person; all others are fictional. Another set of characters is associated with heavenly bodies within the solar system.
Aged 14, Catton and her father went on a tandem trip from their home in Christchurch over Arthur's Pass to the West Coast. This inspired her interest in the 1860s West Coast Gold Rush, and she started thinking about a story. She spent much time in Hokitika while writing the book many years later. Catton returned to Hokitika in March 2014. She gave a question and answer session at the Regent Theatre with her British publisher, Max Porter, in front of a sell-out crowd. She revealed that she had used the Papers Past website of the National Library of New Zealand to find suitable names for her characters. With Balfour an unusual name during the time of the gold rush, it is assumed that Catton adopted the surname of the marine engineer James Balfour who did an assessment of the possibility for a port in Hokitika during the gold rush. British producer Andrew Woodhead has optioned the novel for television, to be written by Catton. Catton said that she would insist on the series being produced on the West Coast, as the flora and fauna there are unique.
Reception
The book has been met with critical acclaim and has been described as "a dazzling feat of a novel" by The Observer. Justine Jordan, writing for The Guardian, also noted positively that Catton deftly organised her novel:
… according to astrological principles, so that characters are not only associated with signs of the zodiac, or the sun and moon, but interact with each other according to the predetermined movement of the heavens, while each of the novel's 12 parts decreases in length over the course of the book to mimic the moon waning through its lunar cycle.
As of August 2014, The Luminaries had sold 560,000 copies, of which 120,000 were sold in New Zealand.
