In the world of literature, accolades do not come much bigger than the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Past winners from the United States include John Steinbeck (for The Grapes of Wrath), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird), and Philip Roth (American Pastoral). Jayne Anne Phillips can now be added to that esteemed list.
Her award-winning sixth novel, Night Watch, was published in 2023 and is a moving account of the impact of the American Civil War on a mother, Eliza, and her young daughter, ConaLee, whose father had been enlisted. Their ordeal is harrowing, and few details are spared, including the violent sexual assault of Eliza as they fall prey to a sadistic Civil War veteran. Once he has had enough of them, he commits them to a lunatic asylum.
The Pulitzer is a highlight in a long and illustrious career for Philips, 71, who began earning literary prizes in 1976. Although her latest book is set in the 1860s, it has resonance today, as America is once again divided and resentful.
Fresh on the heels of her win, Philips spoke to Al Majalla about the book, her inspiration and writing process, and how she sees her books as one body of work.
What inspired you to write Night Watch, and how did you approach the subject of the Civil War?
This is a war novel, not because it’s about war but because the characters must deal with a world that is falling apart around them. The past decade in the United States parallels the Civil War era: the tribal divisions, rampant conspiracy theories, search for scarce resources, migrations in the face of conflict, families fallen apart or separated, struggling to survive.
Humans seem to repeat history rather than learn from it. We seem to be living in a slowly unfolding apocalypse: tribal divisions, scarce resources for many, migrations inspired by broken governments, and families separated for long periods.
Add to this the ongoing climate emergency, rampant online conspiracy theories, and ever-changing viruses. It can be oddly reassuring to enter a turbulent, novelistic past in which changed characters adapt, survive, and even find one another again, no matter how long it takes.
I haven't been tweeting in forever but maybe it's time to share this news. Night Watch is coming out Sept. 19 and the pre-reviews and quotes, plus photographs and documents from the novel, are at my website, https://t.co/4QEX5GPuC3, or at @AAKnopf. pic.twitter.com/lkSILJFFC8
— Jayne Anne Phillips (@jayneanneonly) August 22, 2023
How did you write complex characters such as ConaLee and her mother, Eliza, and what challenges arose during the process?
The beginning of Night Watch occurred to me exactly as it reads. I had no idea where the book was going or what would happen to these characters, but they were utterly alive on the page, in their own voices and time. I needed to follow them and sustain the writing of the novel over years. My books teach me how to write them, just as they teach the reader how to read them.
How do you create believability and engage readers with the characters’ fates?
I can’t answer that question except to say that I am a language-oriented writer and very aware of the sensory, subconscious power of words. I write line by line, like the poet I was when I began, attuned to the rhythm of each sentence. Someone once told me that when they read my books, it’s as though they are actually inside the words rather than just reading them.
That is the power of language. I’ve always said that history tells us the facts, literature tells us the story. The story within the facts is the key to empathy. We are narrative beings. We think in narrative. Through narrative, we can feel ourselves inside the history of another time.
How does the narrative technique of shifting between different time periods and points of view affect the storytelling in Night Watch?
I begin the novel in 1874, nine years after the war, in the immediate crisis that brings Eliza and ConaLee to the asylum, as seen through ConaLee’s eyes. The middle section is set ten years earlier, in 1864, when we see what the characters have endured and what has made them into the characters we first encountered. Then we go forward.
It’s a novel about journeys, long separations, and the immense strength that human beings can possess when they are surviving and acting to protect those they love, even in the face of explosive events and very damaged individuals.
