Night Watch Summary
Jayne Anne Phillips

Night Watch Overview

In Jayne Anne Phillips's novel Night Watch, 12-year-old ConaLee and her mother Eliza find themselves at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the wake of the Civil War. Although ConaLee hopes the resident doctors will help Eliza recover from her recent traumas, she constantly longs for her home on the Virginia frontier. Throughout ConaLee and Eliza's time at the Asylum, a series of revelations about Eliza's past and ConaLee's missing father threaten to pull the characters apart. Written from the first and third person points of view, the novel explores themes including memory, loss, and identity.