Three-star Review for Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
Against a background of the aftermath of the Civil War in the
Virginia-West Virginia area, this story is about a girl, her mother and the
people they meet at an insane asylum where the mother, Eliza, is brought as a
patient. With extended pieces of backstory and a superficial description of the
mother’s recovery from trauma, We learn most of the story from the perspective
of the girl, Cona Lee, who pretends to be her mother’s companion. The florid
descriptions, some more lyrical and some filled with gory detail, , this book
did not engage me as I expected it would.
