Night Watch (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A Novel
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • 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.
Publisher : Vintage
Publication date : February 11, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 1101972793
ISBN-13 : 978-1101972793
Item Weight : 8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.11 x 0.59 x 7.93 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #7,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #311 in Literary Fiction (Books) #464 in American Literature (Books) #984 in Genre Literature & Fiction
Customer Reviews: 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (7,779) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
Original price was: $18.00.$8.10Current price is: $8.10.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • 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.
Publisher : Vintage
Publication date : February 11, 2025
Language : English
Print length : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 1101972793
ISBN-13 : 978-1101972793
Item Weight : 8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.11 x 0.59 x 7.93 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #7,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #311 in Literary Fiction (Books) #464 in American Literature (Books) #984 in Genre Literature & Fiction
Customer Reviews: 4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars (7,779) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });
11 reviews for Night Watch (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A Novel
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Original price was: $18.00.$8.10Current price is: $8.10.
RG –
A gem of a book
What a delightful book. I knew it won the Pulitzer and the basic premise. I was not familiar with the author or her style of writing. The one thing I can say is that it’s hard to put it down once you start reading it. Not a long book but a beautifully written story that makes you feel absorbed into the narrative as an eye witness. Through a difficult and turbulent time in history we find compassion and positive human feelings and emotion. I highly recommend this book.
T. P. Casey –
Art Expands Understanding of Crucial History
Night Watch, a novel by Jayne Anne Phillips, this month won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It tells the story of women and anguish during the American Civil War and its aftermath, of mothers and surrogate mothers and widows caught in the killing of their husbands and children in battle. It is finally a story about a driven will to survive, to the breaking point, horrors that visit their lives. Men are not portrayed propitiously in this narrative.Phillips creates a specific reality for each of her characters and mixes their historical situations effectively. Husbands conscripted for war are lost to fighting. Families are sundered, in spirit or in fact. Without a male protector in isolated precincts, rape is a real fear, and vulnerability to theft a fact of life. Children are exploited and abused or rejected by mothers as spoiled by forceful parentage. Night Watch uncovers a world where women, codified by law as second-class citizens, must depend on men who shirk their duties and responsibilities. Laws promulgated to address injustice toward women and to protect their rights as citizens would come later. In 1874, the year of post-Civil War reconstruction used by Phillips, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded, and the political drive to outlaw alcohol commenced. In 1919 prohibition was ratified as the18th constitutional amendment in response to alcohol abuse disrupting domestic culture.Night Watch has a well-researched background for a fundamentally serious story on a serious topic set in America’s most serious history, the Civil War, and its aftermath. One fault of the narrative is an almost total lack of humor. Another is that the resolution suffers slightly but manifestly from contrivance. Against other virtues, this might be quibbling. In 1874 a woman at the edge of sanity is taken to a lunatic asylum because of horrifying circumstances and abuse. This is brilliantly and believably portrayed. Daughter ConaLee accompanies her mother, in a subterfuge that allows acceptance into the asylum, Eliza, now neurotically speechless and under the name of Miss Janet, finds sanctuary and safety. And more satisfying discoveries will eventually unfold.There is a buried intensity in how Jayne Anne Phillips writes. The Pulitzer Prize is focused on talent. Her sentences are sharp, paired; her scenes are vivid. Behind an obvious effort of research and story is a determination to serve art and life. This artistic fortitude makes the foundation for her entire novel.Though Phillips’s evocation of men as cowardly and morally evasive can weary as too unidirectional, her emphasis is historically accurate. She has a point. And she is writing history, not re-writing it. Using fiction as art’s way of expanding dimension and perspective, she speaks to what has become the clichéd, ignored, or even abandoned plight of women in our society. Her representation of what happened to her fictional characters in a carefully reconstructed account of a particular time resonates truth. The frangible nature of chance and fate for women during a war that took from them their men and boys is the undergirding theme of Night Watch. Jayne Anne Phillips has written her best novel so far, and it will stand.–Tom Casey
DebK –
Captivating story *SPOILER ALERT*
I was unable to put this book down — the story is spellbinding, and the characters are fascinating. But I was glad I read the reviews on the book before I picked it up. The rape scene is brilliant but extremely graphic, and I was able to skim over it. I could never understand how the main character couldn’t get away before she was subjugated a second time. Why was Dearblha so helpless for such a strong and resourceful woman? Couldn’t she have taken out the tormenter with poison or a sharp shot? How was he let back? This was never really explained or described, and I think it should have been. Like others, I take issue with the style of writing. Both the voice and the prose shift quite a bit, and it can be very confusing and jarring. The author goes into a kind of ‘stream of consciousness’ with different voices which makes it hard to follow the action and the plot. Some say there are just too many coincidences, and I have to agree, but I did not think so until the very end.
Miriam –
Mixed bag of characters, some good, some evil.
Overall, this story reminded me more than anything of the Brönte sisters’ gothic novels, with hidden identities and constant peril, rescued in the end by love and death. The Civil War setting made this more palatable, as did the setting in a historical institution. The chapter epigrams added a lot to the otherwise overly melodramatic story. The story depends on people being able to “see” things happening in other locations, a narrative ploy that the author uses too many times to move the story forward.
Jo Ann –
Wonderful story of historical Civil War times
I never lost interest in wondering what next chapter would entail . The writing was so unusual you were taken back to the era .
SkyGirl, Montana –
Historically Perceptive
Puzzle-like in plot, one must spend ample time sorting out the particulars. The setting is fascinating. The characters and many of the circumstances are often contrived – overtly coincidental. The language serves the purpose to mentally shift one’s mind to the South in the late 1800s, though awkwardly penned. Themes of loss, injury, namelessness were traumatically resolved. A satisfying novel after slow and deliberate reading.
rrr_hhh –
It’s an interesting and agreeable reading, but it leaves me with mixed feelings.What is good :1) it keeps you hooked till the end.2) the description of the Quaker’s Asylum and of its work in the aftermath of the civil war is interesting.3) I enjoyed the description of the natural environment, although with some caveats (see below).What leaves me with mixed feelings1) the writing style is a bit complicated and confusing.. who speaks or thinks what is said is not always clear.2) the style is vivid and imaged but some descriptions, be it of the nature, the places or the feelings of the main characters sounds strange or incongruous.2) the plot, even in the context of the civil war seems very improbable (for instance, how the all converge to the asylum in the end).3) the whole is a little too soapy for my taste.In the end, it’s probably a bit too American for an European mind.
Gautam Kapat –
Wonderful
Bea –
Regalo molto apprezzato.
Jose Castro –
Fantástico
Barbara, Cambridge –
Very good read. Had me gripped right to the end.