Author: Jayne Anne Phillips
Published: 2023
Pages: 276
Prizes: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2023
Project: War – American Civil War
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In 1874, twelve-year-old ConaLee and her mute mother, Eliza, travel to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, grappling with the aftermath of the Civil War. ConaLee, acting as the family’s caretaker, navigates asylum life, encountering figures like the Night Watch and an orphan named Weed. They seek to heal from past traumas, including the disappearance of ConaLee’s father during the war.
Complexity
CEFR: B2
Plot Complexity: moderate
Language Complexity: moderate
Ideas Complexity: rich
Blurb
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.
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