Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2023
304 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds
In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn't spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital's entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.
The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their story: their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee's father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother's maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.
Epic, enthralling, and meticulously crafted, Night Watch is a stunning chronicle of surviving war and its aftermath.
"A look at historic attitudes towards women's health and the endurance of family in the face of grief. Night Watch is at its strongest when focusing on the complex dynamic between a young girl and the mentally ill mother she must care for. Shifts in timeline and perspective flesh out their backstory, but they can detract from the narrative's sense of momentum and emotional intensity." - Callum McLaughlin, BookBrowse
"Gorgeous prose, attention to detail, and masterful characters ... Set in West Virginia during and after the Civil War, Phillips' book takes as given that slavery was evil and the war a necessity, focusing instead on lives torn apart by the conflict and on the period's surprisingly enlightened approach toward care of the mentally ill ... Pitch-perfect voice ... Haunting storytelling and a refreshing look at history."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Exquisite attention to detail propels a superb meditation on broken families in post–Civil War West Virginia ... A profound sense of loss haunts the novel, and Phillips conveys a strong sense of place ... The bruised and turbulent postbellum era comes alive in Phillips's page-turning affair."
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Vivid... Phillips excels in crafting original takes on human circumstances, like mother-daughter relationships and women's vulnerabilities and resilience. Her setting here is equally striking: the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in rural West Virginia... The historical milieu comes alive in all its facets as Phillips evokes the enduring bonds of both blood and chosen families."
—Booklist
"There is a luminous beauty in Phillips's prose. Whether it is the dark interiors of war—which have become her forte—or the equally complex and fraught lives of so-called 'ordinary' people, Phillips brings these theaters of peace and loss, death and transcendence together with a remarkable alchemy."
—Ken Burns, filmmaker
"Jayne Anne Phillips is a brilliant artist working at the height of her powers. Word by word, and line by line, there is no one better. This novel lives where a startling imagination meets scrupulous research: Night Watch is a tour de force—breathtaking in both its scope and intensity."
—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
"A profound meditation on identity, empathy, sanity, daughter-love, nature, and the Civil War, Night Watch will leave you shook and sustained. This novel delivers fictional reckoning that makes way for the potential of real-world reconciliation by delivering complex and necessary testimony and confession. Weaving photographs and fragments of non-fiction prose into an intimate family story, Night Watch is at once shatteringly particular and audaciously universal. Jayne Anne Phillips arrives at the crowning achievement of an extraordinary career."
—Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints
"Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderfully gifted storyteller, and few contemporary writers can match the lyricism of her prose, but in this marvelous new novel, largely set in a factual nineteenth-century asylum, she achieves even more: history and imagination merge, and she gives the past a living pulse."
—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
This information about Night Watch was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, Quiet Dell, and Night Watch. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bunting Fellowship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Winner of an Arts and Letters Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she was inducted into the Academy in 2018. A National Book Award finalist, and twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, she lives in New York and Boston.
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