Say Goodnight, Gracie

Published in 1988, Say Goodnight, Gracie is a contemporary novel for young adults by Julie Reece Deaver. The story follows seventeen-year-old Morgan Hackett who struggles to cope when her best friend, Jimmy Woolf, is killed by a drunk driver. Friends and family help Morgan through her grieving process to her eventual acceptance of Jimmy’s death. Say Goodnight, Gracie explores powerful themes of friendship, loss, and learning to live again. Say Goodnight, Gracie was listed as an ALA Best Books for Young Adults title and made the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list.

Growing up in Glen Ellyn, an affluent Chicago suburb, Morgan and Jimmy have been best friends since childhood. Photos in their family albums chronicle their friendship from when they are just a few days old up to their seventeenth birthdays. Morgan and Jimmy do everything together, from pillow fights to Christmas shopping, and have made many joyful memories.

Their differing personalities complement each other perfectly. Morgan wants to be an actor. She takes acting workshops at Second City, an improv theater in downtown Chicago. She keeps things inside and likes to be in control. More of a free spirit, Jimmy is always ready with a joke or encouraging comment. He calms Morgan down and makes her laugh. Jimmy is studying dance and musical theater and idolizes Fred Astaire. Morgan is his Ginger Rogers, although dancing is not her strong suit. Morgan sometimes feels that she is living in a black-and-white rerun of the 1950s television comedy, The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show; she and Jimmy are as comfortable together as an old married couple. Although Morgan is a little jealous of one of Jimmy’s leading ladies and does demand a Christmas kiss from him, there is nothing romantic about their relationship, they are just close friends. As Jimmy says, “Lovers come and go, but friends go on and on.” Even though they have squabbles and fights, their friendship endures.



One cold evening, Jimmy drives Morgan into Chicago and drops her off to attend a party at Second City while he goes to an appointment. Before she leaves, Jimmy gives Morgan his jacket, since she had left the house in a rush and forgotten her own. When Jimmy fails to pick Morgan up, she knows something is wrong. Morgan’s mother comes to get her and informs her that Jimmy has been in a car accident and is in the emergency room. The two rush to the hospital where they see Jimmy’s mother and Morgan’s Aunt Lo, a psychiatrist. Morgan learns that Jimmy was thrown from his car and suffered massive head injuries: he dies in a coma.

Morgan can’t believe her friend is gone, but she assures her family that she is not going to fall apart. She throws Jimmy’s jacket into the trash but retrieves it in the middle of the night and wears it to bed: it makes her feel close to him. At Jimmy’s funeral, Morgan realizes she can’t handle it, and she leaves. She beings to feel guilty. She knows Jimmy was killed moments after dropping her off and she wonders why she wasn’t killed also. Morgan thinks his death was her fault because Jimmy only took that road because he had to drop her off. Morgan begins to suffer from insomnia and panic attacks. She lies about Jimmy’s death to a stranger which makes her feel like Jimmy is still alive somewhere. Aunt Lo tells Morgan that hanging onto Jimmy’s jacket is her way of holding onto him.

Morgan returns to school—walking by herself for the first time in her life. Though she and Jimmy didn’t share any classes, they saw each other constantly throughout the school day. Morgan misses him even more. Because of her close friendship with Jimmy, she didn’t have many other friends. Morgan becomes depressed and her grades slip, but she refuses to see a therapist, as Jimmy’s mom is doing, because she believes she can handle her feelings alone.



Concerned for her mental health, Morgan’s parents let her stay home from school for a few weeks. Morgan spends most of the time in bed until her father talks with her. He lets her know they are worried Morgan is suicidal. She admits that she is scared and feels “dead inside.” Morgan shares that she wishes she had been killed instead of Jimmy, because Jimmy could have survived without her, but she can’t survive without him—and she doesn’t want to.

When Morgan goes back to school, a girl in her English class, Jody, reaches out to her. Together they ditch classes for a day and Morgan has fun again for the first time in a long while. On Jimmy’s birthday, Morgan takes flowers to his mother and learns that they are moving away, not because of their loss, but because it was something they previously planned. Morgan isn’t sure how to feel about this additional loss, because Jimmy’s mother has been like a mother to her as well. Morgan goes to the theater where Jimmy used to dance and sees the young boy who has inherited Jimmy’s scholarship position dancing to a Fred Astaire song. Morgan dances with him briefly, but it brings up too many memories. She calls her Aunt Lo in a panic.

Aunt Lo urges Morgan to talk about her feelings, but Morgan says it would hurt too much. Her aunt counters that before she can heal, she must let Jimmy go, and it is going to hurt. Morgan is finally able to let out all the sadness she has kept locked inside. She tells her aunt that she feels as if she has been on a long trip, getting farther away from herself, and is finally coming back. On her birthday, Morgan throws Jimmy’s jacket into the Chicago River and realizes that she is going to be okay.



Say Goodnight, Gracie is followed by a sequel, The Night I Disappeared, published in 2002.