Reviews
"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 "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 "It's hard to know what to praise first--Jayne Anne Phillips' signature beautiful sentences, the compelling scenes of battle and their ravaged aftermath, the fascinating portrayal of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride's 'moral treatment' method for the mentally ill, or the vivid depiction of the people and land of West Virginia in the 1860s and 70s. Night Watch takes a highly deserved place among important novels about war and its legacy." -- Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point, "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 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 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 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, "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
