Awards

• Short-listed for National Book Awards (Fiction) 2023

Overview

"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 ""A tour de force."" —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 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."

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9780451493330

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Reviews

"“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 “A lovely piece of work . . . Night Watch is another of Jayne Anne Phillips’s intimate revelatory creations.” —Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina “A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath.” —Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War “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 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 A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath. -Drew Gilpin Faust, author of Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury

“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 “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 “A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath.” —Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

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

"“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 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 “A lovely piece of work . . . Night Watch is another of Jayne Anne Phillips’s intimate revelatory creations.” —Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina “A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath.” —Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War “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"

Author Information

JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS is the author of Black Tickets, Machine Dreams, Fast Lanes, Shelter, MotherKind, Lark and Termite, and Quiet Dell. 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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