BookLife Review by Carol O'Day: Night Watch (Jayne Ann Phillips, author)
2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Civil War, mental illness, traumatic brain injury, Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, sexual assault, Quakers, West Virginia, herbal medicine, frontier life
Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips is the recipient of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Set in the decade following the end of the Civil War, Night Watch crafts a story from the dark belly of history. It is a breath-taking expose of the vulnerability citizens experienced as prey to wandering armies and defectors, the powerlessness of women and children in that era, and the resilience of the human spirit. Night Watch reminds us of the excruciatingly slow crawl of time in an era when there were no telephones and a very limited postal service, where news moved on horseback and buckboards or by telegraph.
The historical novel is set in West Virginia, a pro-Union border state adjacent to Confederate Virginia. Located in Weston, West Virginia was the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. The Asylum was founded and operated by Quakers and was a haven for men and women suffering various forms of what was then identified as mental illness. It was premised on Dr. T.S. Kirkbridge’s method of “moral treatment” for the mentally ill. The Asylum is a real place and stands today as a historical monument. The imagined story that Phillips crafts of its inhabitants is based on fact, but is wholly fictional. Men and women were delivered to the Asylum for care by family or others. The novel depicts the care as kind and progressive, with holistic treatments focused on physical and psychological therapies, generous accommodations and personal attendants. The range of illness there was broad, ranging from exhaustion, depression, and “poverty”, to hallucinations and dementia.
The primary protagonist of the novel is ConaLee, a 12 year-old girl who is delivered to the Asylum together with her mostly mute mother by a Confederate defector and rapist who referred to himself as “Papa.” This villain held the mother and daughter captive in their mountain cabin as they awaited the return of Ephraim, ConaLee’s father and Eliza’s husband, from the War. Papa separates ConaLee and Eliza from three infants born to Eliza during her captivity, and Dearbhla, a de facto grandmother who had raised Ephraim and lived on the mountain. Dearbhla was versed in natural remedies, herbal medicine as well as hunting and foraging and had served as the family’s guardian during Ephraim’s nearly decade long absence. Unbeknownst to the family, Ephraim had survived the War but had suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unable to remember his past.
Upon arrival at the Asylum, ConaLee poses as Eliza’s personal maid and assistant in order to remain with her during her stay. The Asylum is safe and restorative haven for the women, though ConaLee longs for her home on the mountain, her siblings and Dearbhla. The story takes a twist when Eliza captures the attention and heart of the physician in charge, her therapist, and shortly thereafter recognizes that one of the employees, the Night Watch, is her beloved Ephraim.
Night Watch artfully weaves themes of identity, loss, grief, depression, sanity, familial love, fear and war into its story. It is a tale largely heretofore untold and an important contribution to the impact and legacies of the Civil War. Moreover, Phillips deploys majestic and lyrical prose. The sense of place in the rugged mountains of West Virginia, the humble cabins and daily lives of mountain dwellers, and the grand and extensive Trans-Allegheny Asylum and its grounds is captivating. Journey back in time with this Pulitzer-prize winning author and uncover a piece of American history to ignite your imagination.
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