On Saturday, April 16, Ellen presented an academic paper entitled, "Jane Langton’s Dark Nantucket Noon: Charting the Nature of Detection," at Cartographies, the New York College English Association (NYCEA) Spring 2005 Conference, held April 15 and 16 at Siena College, Loudonville, New York.

Published nearly thirty years ago, Jane Langton’s Dark Nantucket Noon is a key text in
showing the possibilities and alternatives in the figure of the detective. This paper explores her response to the Great Detective–the traditional, mainstream figure of detection–as well as charts her use of New England landscapes, literature, and themes, especially those of Transcendentalism.

Called the “modern mediator of transcendental myth,” Langton uses certain authors or books to inform her mystery fiction, highlighting motifs and providing commentary in the form of quotations at the beginning of each chapter. In Dark Nantucket Noon, it is the words of Melville, of whaling logs, and of the early Quaker settlers of the island that chart the geography and history of Nantucket, amplifying the novel’s themes. In addition, nature also figures largely in her work: it is “a transcendental view of nature, which is really a mystical response to it.” In many of her works, the villains are often found to be “hiding under the cover of nature, betraying it” (Carr 81). For instance, in Dark Nantucket Noon, it is an eclipse that provides the means and
opportunity for the crime, and it is because of the environment, and the control of land on the island, that the conflict and ultimately the murder occurred.

At the same time, Langton also challenges conventional attitudes towards detectives and the detection process. Her characters participate in the traditional model of the Great Detective while they subvert and expand it. Her series detective is a male, Homer Kelly, and he is the official detective in Dark Nantucket Noon. Formerly a lawyer, Homer is a Harvard professor and scholar of Transcendentalists like Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville. His client is Kitty Clark, who acts as an unofficial detective, and thus the two participate in the convention of “partners in crime,” usually a pairing of male detective and female adjunct.

However, this is not the usual model of active male and passive, supportive woman.
Though Homer is renown for his detecting abilities, Langton also makes him human, combining elements of the Great Detective and the average sleuth traditions. Moreover, Langton gives Kitty more than a nominal assistant’s role in the book. In fact, Homer–who is one of the first to believe “in his heart and mind” that Kitty is innocent–also recognizes that Kitty brings an added element, a spiritual dimension to the detection process in her desire to spend her free time before the trial getting to know Nantucket island. While Homer is smart and persistent in his sleuthing,
it is Kitty who, as she charts the geography of the island and its inhabitants, uncovers the evidence and clues that are crucial to the solution of the mystery. By doing so, Langton privileges qualities that are usually associated with the feminine–Nature and the irrational, aspects of life that Transcendentalists and non-western cultures value–thus mapping a new course for the detective hero and for alternative methods of detection.