Night Watch: A Novel

Night Watch (2023) is a historical fiction novel by Jayne Anne Phillips. The novel follows ConaLee, a young girl in post-Civil War West Virginia, as she and her mother, Eliza, struggle to survive in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. The novel is split into parts that take place in 1864, 1874, and 1883, following Eliza and ConaLee’s life in the Appalachian Mountains and the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. As a work of postmodernism, Phillips uses unconventional narrative techniques, such as moving through time, developing imagery through stream-of-consciousness writing, and differences in perspective to further the plot and characterization in the novel. Night Watch explores themes of Trauma and Its Long-Term Effects, The Importance of Family, and The Societal Impacts of War as ConaLee struggles to raise her mother’s children, protect herself and her mother, and find her father in the decade after the Civil War.

This guide refers to the Kindle Borzoi Book edition of the text, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2023.

Content Warning: This novel includes descriptions of sexual assault and abuse, child abuse, violence, war, trauma, racism, sexism, and mental health conditions; this guide touches on all these topics.