49 pages • 1 hour read
Lily Brooks-DaltonGood Morning, Midnight
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Augie’s contact with Sully is brief, but they provide one another with basic information about themselves and their situations. Augie finds himself longing to tell her about life on the lake and in the Arctic, as well as to ask her about life on the Aether, but they are cut off shortly after contact.
Augie is surprised when Iris exhibits no interest in hearing the new voice or learning about the outside world, but he nevertheless returns to the hut to wait for Sully’s voice. However, the next voice he hears is Harper’s, and they discuss the state of Earth. Neither can provide the other with answers about what happened.
In Augie’s next contact with Sully, she asks him to tell her about the land, longing to hear about something on Earth. Just before they disconnect, she tells him of the Aether’s plans to dock with the International Space Station, even if it is unmanned.
Augie falls ill after this conversation, becoming as feverish as he was at the observatory. Whenever he wakes, he sees Iris caring for him, but he thinks that she looks at times like Jean and at times like his mother. She comes back into the tent during one of his waking moments, and he falls back asleep.
Chapter 18 Summary
Sully excitedly awakens the rest of the crew after her first contact with Augie. They share her excitement but all become frustrated when Augie cannot provide much new information.
After their final connection, Sully considers Augie and what she heard in his voice. She recognized herself in him: “a stubborn loneliness […] he craved connection without understanding how to obtain it” (230).
The crew prepares to dock with the International Space Station. As they observe the station and Earth, Sully admits to Thebes that she’s not sure she’s ready for whatever comes next.
Chapter 19 Summary
Waking from his fever, Augie cannot find Iris; he hears only the low singing of the wind. He thinks of Sully and wishes he could speak to her more: He wants to ask her about her life, share his accomplishments, and confess his sins. As he considers this desire for connection and begins to stand up, he sees Iris and asks her why she is there. He sees Iris shrug, and as he closes his eyes, he knows that she will no longer be there when he opens them.
As he realizes Iris was never there—she was only ever in his mind—he remembers Jean again. He remembers getting drunk after she told him about the pregnancy and returning to her, crying and wanting to “fix” everything. Seeing the truth of his brokenness, Jean turned him away.
Augie dresses and listens to the wind, which he now recognizes as “Iris’s melody.” Building up energy for one last trip to the radio hut, he sets off to attempt contact with Sully.
On the way to the hut, he sees the polar bear’s tracks again, this time leading to the edge of the lake, where the bear is lying. Augie turns to the bear, touching the dying animal as it lies under a thin layer of snow. He thinks of Jean and of their daughter, a girl with hair cut the same way as he imagined Iris’s. Instead of returning to the radio hut, Augie moves closer to the bear and tucks himself along its stomach. Feeling part of the landscape, he stays there, at peace, feeling the bear’s breath and heartbeat.
Chapter 20 Summary
The crew of the Aether successfully docks at the International Space Station, finding it abandoned: Machines are still running and food is floating around the eating area. Only one Soyuz reentry pod remains, with three seats. Two of the Aether’s crewmembers must therefore stay on board the space station while the other three return to Earth, but neither option guarantees safety. Like the rest of the crew, Sully wonders what has happened to her loved ones on Earth and whether she could have avoided her current situation by being a better mother or wife. Finally, she admits that she wasn’t built for that kind of life.
At Harper’s suggestion the crew draws straws to decide who will stay in space. Sully and Ivanov draw the short straws, leaving Harper, Tal, and Thebes to return to Earth. That night, Sully feels peace considering her future stuck on board the space station. She releases her past and her hopes and feels lighter. She finds herself able to lie next to Harper and acknowledge “a reservoir of love that had never been touched” (246).
The next morning, Thebes announces that he will be staying on board and that he and Ivanov have agreed that Sully should take his place: The younger astronauts will all return to Earth. As she contemplates this change of plans, Sully feels anxiety about the unknown future.
Tal, Harper, and Sully say their goodbyes and enter the pod. As they descend, Harper turns to Sully, telling her how glad he is she is going back to Earth with him. He calls her by her first name, Iris, revealing her connection to Augie. The novel ends as Sully expresses her own gladness at returning home.
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
The novel’s falling action begins as Augie and the Aether exchange information and face decisions about their futures. Unlike more plot-focused science fiction novels, Good Morning, Midnight does not provide resolution by revealing what happened to Earth or what the astronauts do in response. The resolution, or denouement, is instead emotional, just as Augie’s and Sully’s journeys have been primarily personal: The final chapters resolve the characters’ journeys by depicting them finally earning and embracing redemption. The tight hold of memory and regret begins to loosen, and both Augie and Sully focus on the choices of the present and the possibilities of the future.
For Augie, redemption comes through Human and Environmental Connection: learning to care for another (and become the father he never was) and reconnecting with himself and with everything around him. After decades retreating to the skies, mistreating and abandoning everyone he met, Augie spends nearly a year learning to provide care beyond basic needs like food and shelter. Moving from resentment to gratitude to love, Augie knows, by the end of his life, what it is like to be a parent and to bond with those around him.
Augie’s redemption is also tied to the landscape. His feelings toward the natural world evolve, particularly via the symbol of the polar bear. He kills a wolf, pities the bear, imagines being the bear, accepts the presence of wolves near his tent, and finally lays himself down next to the dying polar bear. Knowing his own death is near, Augie decides not to pursue one more contact with Sully, instead surrendering himself to his immediate surroundings. He chooses connection to an animal and connection to the land, earning redemption through love and acceptance.
Just before this, one key plot point is revealed: that Iris was a product of Augie’s imagination during his solitude in the Arctic. Augie has previously observed clues during their time together: her lack of frostbite after being in the snow with only long underwear, her song that sounds like the wind, and her odd looks whenever he questions her. However, he never fully comprehends, needing both her presence and the redemption that comes from caring for her. Significantly, his final moments with her occur during his returned illness: She has served her purpose—forcing him to reckon with his past, including the looming figure of his abandoned daughter—and now he is prepared to die peacefully.
Sully earns her redemption through connection and acceptance as well. She shows new interest in the natural world as she achieves contact with Augie, asking him to describe his experiences of the land, the animals, and even the sensation of gravity. More importantly, having spent years berating herself for her failings as a mother, Sully sees that “[s]he wasn’t built for that life” (242), and she releases the shame that had been haunting her. In the place of those feelings of insufficiency, Sully finally leans into connection with those around her on the Aether. Acknowledging Harper’s feelings for her, Sully understands that her entire life has led her here, and she feels “the unfurling of a quiet intuition, a reservoir of love that had never been touched” (246). Uninhibited by the expectations of what she should do, Sully earns redemption by accepting who she is and allowing herself the vulnerability of connection to others.
