2024 the best books of 2024 review

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PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds

"A tour de force." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

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.

Epic, enthralling, and meticulously crafted, Night Watch is a stunning chronicle of surviving war and its aftermath.

From the Publisher

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (September 19, 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0451493338
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0451493330
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.65 x 1.1 x 9.55 inches
Reviewer: Andrea Hofmeister
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Fine Tale
Review: The story is exciting and epic. But more importantly, the language as a poetic mystery to it. It’s so rare to find prose, plot, and poetry combined so expertly. I highly recommend this novel.

Reviewer: T. P. Casey
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Art Expands Understanding of Crucial History
Review: Night Watch, a novel by Jayne Anne Phillips, this month won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It tells the story of women and anguish during the American Civil War and its aftermath, of mothers and surrogate mothers and widows caught in the killing of their husbands and children in battle. It is finally a story about a driven will to survive, to the breaking point, horrors that visit their lives. Men are not portrayed propitiously in this narrative.Phillips creates a specific reality for each of her characters and mixes their historical situations effectively. Husbands conscripted for war are lost to fighting. Families are sundered, in spirit or in fact. Without a male protector in isolated precincts, rape is a real fear, and vulnerability to theft a fact of life. Children are exploited and abused or rejected by mothers as spoiled by forceful parentage. Night Watch uncovers a world where women, codified by law as second-class citizens, must depend on men who shirk their duties and responsibilities. Laws promulgated to address injustice toward women and to protect their rights as citizens would come later. In 1874, the year of post-Civil War reconstruction used by Phillips, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded, and the political drive to outlaw alcohol commenced. In 1919 prohibition was ratified as the18th constitutional amendment in response to alcohol abuse disrupting domestic culture.Night Watch has a well-researched background for a fundamentally serious story on a serious topic set in America’s most serious history, the Civil War, and its aftermath. One fault of the narrative is an almost total lack of humor. Another is that the resolution suffers slightly but manifestly from contrivance. Against other virtues, this might be quibbling. In 1874 a woman at the edge of sanity is taken to a lunatic asylum because of horrifying circumstances and abuse. This is brilliantly and believably portrayed. Daughter ConaLee accompanies her mother, in a subterfuge that allows acceptance into the asylum, Eliza, now neurotically speechless and under the name of Miss Janet, finds sanctuary and safety. And more satisfying discoveries will eventually unfold.There is a buried intensity in how Jayne Anne Phillips writes. The Pulitzer Prize is focused on talent. Her sentences are sharp, paired; her scenes are vivid. Behind an obvious effort of research and story is a determination to serve art and life. This artistic fortitude makes the foundation for her entire novel.Though Phillips’s evocation of men as cowardly and morally evasive can weary as too unidirectional, her emphasis is historically accurate. She has a point. And she is writing history, not re-writing it. Using fiction as art’s way of expanding dimension and perspective, she speaks to what has become the clichéd, ignored, or even abandoned plight of women in our society. Her representation of what happened to her fictional characters in a carefully reconstructed account of a particular time resonates truth. The frangible nature of chance and fate for women during a war that took from them their men and boys is the undergirding theme of Night Watch. Jayne Anne Phillips has written her best novel so far, and it will stand. --Tom Casey

Reviewer: michm
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Read
Review: I was totally taken away with this book. To my knowledge, there has not been much written in a fiction format about the horrors after the Civil War ... the struggles of the women and children left in the aftermath. The character development was superb. The civilized approach to mental illness was very interesting.

Reviewer: Bonnie Lee Black
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Disappointing
Review: I wanted to like this book. I wanted to understand why it won a Pulitzer Prize. I read it to the end, but I came away disappointed. I must say I didn't like it very much, and I still don't understand why it received such a prize. Reading it, I felt like I was walking through the home of a hoarder -- I could barely navigate because it was so filled with STUFF. The writing is far too cluttered. The basic story is important (following lives deeply affected by the Civil War), but some of the characters play no role in it (hence, more clutter). Yes, the author did a lot of admirable research, but she shares way too much of it, in my opinion.

Reviewer: Andrea
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Pulitzer Prize winner with a can’t put it down story line.
Review: Accurate descriptions of the former Weston State Hospital aka TALA . The building itself is still standing and open to public tours.

Reviewer: Robert D. Dorney
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Just finished this Pulitzer Prize winner
Review: Just finished this book last night when Amazon asked me to write a review. I put off reading it because so many Pulitzer followers (I’ve read all of the fiction winners) just hated it/couldn't finish it. Pretty complex story structure for just 276 pages. I liked it more than many I guess but the ending left me flat. I would have voted for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store to win the prize. That book introduced me to Chick Webb the jazz drummer who hired Ella Fitzgerald when she was still a teenager.

Reviewer: Phillip Stubblefield
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An amazing, complex story.
Review: Marvelous historical fiction, with a large dose of reality. The characters are very well drawn. I felt drawn into their stories. There sadness made me sad.

Reviewer: Debby Jo Blank
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: what voices!
Review: The characters, horrible and transcendent, imagined and familiar, are utterly intimates through this writing. The historical backdrop is enthralling. The minds of the characters are unusual and compelling. I loved this book, my first by this author. I bought 3 others right after finishing.

Reviewer: Kathy Geer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I’m a Canadian in her 60s who studied what Americans would call AP History when I was 18. I have always been interested, saddened and fascinated with the psychosocial antecedents and impacts of your Civil War. My initial college education was English literature and journalism. I then retrained in late middle age as a nurse. For the past 12 years I have worked as a psychiatric nurse at a rural Canadian psychiatric hospital that is very old and quite similar to the Trans Allegheny. So this book obviously resonates personally. Even if it hadn’t, I am so moved by the beautiful evocative descriptions of country, landscape and place, and of the depth of the characters. I periodically make the drive from Canada to Florida and typically pass through W. Virginia. Next time I shall stop in Weston. Thank you JAP

Reviewer: Cassie Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This is a marvellous novel. Set in the chaotic, almost apocalyptic, aftermath of the American Civil War.A traumatised mother and her loving daughter seek refuge in a lunatic asylum in West Virginia.As one of the characters says: 'When the killing ends the grief goes on.'Fascinating characters and a powerful plot.Highly recommended.

Reviewer: Pauline Johansen
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A somewhat disturbing read. Especially for someone not familiar with the after effects of the civil war in the Unites States. The lawlessness, the animosity and the cruelty on full display.A difficult but eye-opening read.

Reviewer: Philip Morehead
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This beautiful novel touches me greatly, especially since I have a family touched by the War. The characters are real and deep. Recommended!

Reviewer: DOUGLAS
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The Pulitzer judges were given this book to judge with money inserted in the pages. Can't think of any other explanation