Summary
Introduction
Jayne Anne Phillips’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Night Watch (2023) is an intricately rendered historical novel about a family struggling to heal in the aftermath of the Civil War: The father, Ephraim Connolly, is a Union sharpshooter who receives a massive head wound in the last days of the war that destroys his memory; his long-suffering wife, Eliza, is determined to survive the poverty and brutality of the post-war world; and the whip-smart daughter, ConaLee, is coming into her own in the wake of it all.
Night Watch, Phillips’ sixth novel, reflects her career-long interest in the trauma of war. Its non-linear narrative—influenced by the point of view experiments pioneered by William Faulkner—moves section to section between events in the last months of the war (1864) and those that take place decades later. Living in the forbidding hills of West Virginia, the mother and daughter—abused for years by a renegade Confederate drifter they know only as Papa—find deliverance in the compassionate care at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. At the hospital, they reunite all too briefly with Ephraim, employed there as a night watch.
The novel explores the struggle for identity amid the turmoil of war, the healing power of empathy and community, and supremely, the transformative power of the supra-natural.
Summary
A staunch believer in the Union, Ephraim Connolly, a Virginian farmer, enlists to fight the Confederacy. He leaves behind his pregnant wife, Eliza. A hunter adept with rifles, Ephraim distinguishes himself as a sniper, even taking the nickname Sharpshooter. In late 1864, as the war winds down, he is wounded in the head.
When he awakens in the Union hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, he has no memory of who he is. The recovery is difficult and painful, but he heals well under the care of Dr. John O’Shea. Unable to remember his own name, Ephraim—out of gratitude—takes the name John O’Shea.
Back home, Eliza and the newborn ConaLee have no idea what happened to Ephraim. Dearblha, an illiterate Irish immigrant and the Connolly's neighbor, takes it upon herself to make the arduous trip to Alexandria, certain that Ephraim is being treated there. The reason for her devotion soon clarifies: Long ago, she adopted young Ephraim and raised him as her son. Of course, when she arrives at the hospital, no one recognizes the name; given Ephraim’s disfigurement, she does not recognize him among the hundreds of patients.
Shortly after her visit, the newly named John O’Shea agrees to work with Dr. O'Shea at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, in the new state of West Virginia. The West Virginia facility has become nationally recognized for its cutting-edge treatment and for the fact that patients there are treated with compassion and given the opportunity to respond to community activities, arts and crafts workshops, and concerts and plays as part of their therapy. With his military background, John is given the job of night watch—he will secure the hospital grounds at night to keep all the patients safe.
Back home, Eliza and ConaLee struggle to maintain the family’s farm, scratching out a living in the difficult months after the war’s end. The farm is regularly raided by rogue soldiers drifting about the countryside, renegade soldiers from both sides—hungry, desperate, and violent.
One such soldier, a Confederate, stops at the farm and is immediately attracted to Eliza. He brutally rapes her as ConaLee watches. Over the next several months, the sadistic soldier, who tells the terrified mother and daughter to call him Papa, keeps Eliza tied to a bed with heavy ropes.
Over the next several years, this Papa comes and...
(This entire section contains 946 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
goes from the farm, never sharing with the mother and daughter where he goes or when he would return. Over this time, Papa has three children with Eliza. Because Eliza, brutalized by Papa, withdraws into her private world and seldom talks, it falls to ConaLee to care for the babies.
Growing weary of Eliza’s silence, Papa decides to dump both her and ConaLee at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. He warns them never to say anything about him or their life back on the farm. ConaLee, now a young girl of twelve, talks their way into the facility by inventing a story, complete with new identities, about how they came to be there.
Under the compassionate care of the facility, Eliza begins to come out of her shell. The mother and daughter enjoy the concerts and poetry recitations and take long walks about the hospital’s spacious grounds and even carriage rides. Eliza begins to attract the romantic interest of Dr. O’Shea.
It is during one of the carriage rides conducted by the night watch that Eliza recognizes Ephraim. Ephraim, for his part, suddenly emerges from his decade-long amnesia, and the two lovers have a joyful and passionate reunion.
When they go to share their news, the meeting is interrupted by the intrusion of Papa, who has been detained in the asylum because of his erratic behavior and violent outbursts. When Papa bursts into the doctor’s office, he points a loaded revolver at the doctor, but Ephraim takes the bullet and tackles Papa, pushing him out the window. Papa falls to his death. The bullet wound, however, is deep, and shortly after Ephraim dies.
Uncertain of her future, the widow Eliza elects to stay at the hospital and, eventually, remarries. Together, ConaLee and Dearbhla help raise a young orphan from the asylum. When Dearbhla dies, ConaLee decides to pursue her dream of owning her own home, purchasing a tidy little house near the asylum using money set aside by her father
