Description:
Editorial Reviews
Review
—Wendy Smith, The Washington Post
“A story of trauma and restoration in the aftermath of the Civil War . . . Ms. Phillips presents harrowing, visceral scenes of war, but a lot of this novel relates the daily business of convalescence in an asylum, with loving attention given to the motley staff that tends to the unwell . . . The theme of healing extends to the plot. Ms. Phillips, who is drawn to depicting the poor, the mentally disabled, the wounded and other vulnerable souls, is a principled practitioner of narrative magic. Not only serendipity but a kind of clairvoyance connects the characters . . . Goodness is a real thing in this novel—a verifiable force—and the question posed is whether we still have the sensitivity to discern it.”
—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Phillips is very good at is capturing a sort of inner dialect, conveyed here in a language inflected with a Southern twang, modulated to reflect characters’ social status and degree of education . . . It is when Phillips channels [these] thoughts that the telling, like the story itself, becomes [so] compelling, even beautiful.”
—Ellen Akins, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Phillips is at the top of her game in Night Watch, devising a mesmerizing plot, which focuses on survival, family and isolation. It is a portrait of a family in peril, and the reader will be impressed with this novel, which rivals [Phillips’s previous novel] National Book Award finalist, Lark And Termite.”
—Wayne Catan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Phillips’s depiction of a ravaged world in which so many have lost their way or had it stolen from them, both physically and mentally, feels true to the profoundly destabilizing nature of her subject . . . With this excellent novel, Phillips has brought a little more of this foundational American episode into the light.”
—Laird Hunt, The Guardian
“Phillips’ intricately woven storylines are engaging, and her characters range from endearing to haunting . . . There are dozens of passages in Night Watch that deliver moments so vivid, so full of sensory awareness, that they demand both immediate rereading and the folding down of the appropriate page’s corner so they can be revisited. Read this book for those passages. Read it to learn a history you didn’t know you didn’t know. Actually, just read this remarkable novel to be enriched in your understanding of an era that has been so very much forgotten. Read Night Watch to be enlightened.”
—Kristin Macomber, Washington Independent Review of Books
“There is a luminous beauty in Phillips's prose. Whether it is the dark interiors of war—which have become her forte—or the equally complex and fraught lives of so-called ‘ordinary’ people, Phillips brings these theaters of peace and loss, death and transcendence together with a remarkable alchemy.”
—Ken Burns, filmmaker
“Jayne Anne Phillips is a brilliant artist working at the height of her powers. Word by word, and line by line, there is no one better. This novel lives where a startling imagination meets scrupulous research: Night Watch is a tour de force—breathtaking in both its scope and intensity."
—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
“A profound meditation on identity, empathy, sanity, daughter-love, nature, and the Civil War, Night Watch will leave you shook and sustained. This novel delivers fictional reckoning that makes way for the potential of real-world reconciliation by delivering complex and necessary testimony and confession. Weaving photographs and fragments of non-fiction prose into an intimate family story, Night Watch is at once shatteringly particular and audaciously universal. Jayne Anne Phillips arrives at the crowning achievement of an extraordinary career.”
—Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints
“Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderfully gifted storyteller, and few contemporary writers can match the lyricism of her prose, but in this marvelous new novel, largely set in a factual nineteenth-century asylum, she achieves even more: history and imagination merge, and she gives the past a living pulse.”
—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
“A lovely piece of work . . . Night Watch is another of Jayne Anne Phillips’s intimate revelatory creations.”
—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath.”
—Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
“It’s hard to know what to praise first—Jayne Anne Phillips’ signature beautiful sentences, the compelling scenes of battle and their ravaged aftermath, the fascinating portrayal of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride’s ‘moral treatment’ method for the mentally ill, or the vivid depiction of the people and land of West Virginia in the 1860s and 70s. Night Watch takes a highly deserved place among important novels about war and its legacy.”
—Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point
“Gorgeous prose, attention to detail, and masterful characters . . . Set in West Virginia during and after the Civil War, Phillips’ book takes as given that slavery was evil and the war a necessity, focusing instead on lives torn apart by the conflict and on the period’s surprisingly enlightened approach toward care of the mentally ill . . . Pitch-perfect voice . . . Haunting storytelling and a refreshing look at history.”
—Kirkus, starred
“Exquisite attention to detail propels a superb meditation on broken families in post–Civil War West Virginia . . . A profound sense of loss haunts the novel, and Phillips conveys a strong sense of place . . . The bruised and turbulent postbellum era comes alive in Phillips’s page-turning affair.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred
“Vivid . . . Phillips excels in crafting original takes on human circumstances, like mother-daughter relationships and women’s vulnerabilities and resilience. Her setting here is equally striking: the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in rural West Virginia . . . The historical milieu comes alive in all its facets as Phillips evokes the enduring bonds of both blood and chosen families.”
— Booklist
“Tracing an arc from catastrophic damage and loss to recovery through the Civil War and its aftermath, Phillips marries a timeless emotional quality and utterly contemporary sensibility to create a satisfying work in her first novel in a decade . . . Night Watch is escapist in the best sense of the word, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the experience of a distant era and identify deeply with the struggles of the people who lived through it.”
—Harvey Freedenberg, BookPage
About the Author
Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Story that I Felt to my Core
This novel started out slow with sorrow, suffering and abuse. But it evolved into a great story that was so detailed, I felt like I was watching a movie. Very well written. The prose is beautiful, unusual and mesmerizing. A great read.
4.0 out of 5 stars Magical Realism mixes with Historical Fiction
In 1874 in post Civil War West Virginia, twelve-year-old ConaLee and her mute mother are dropped off at lunatic asylum by a low-life drifter named Papa who has given away three younger children. ConaLee is ordered to act like a servant taking care of her mistress who Papa has renamed Miss Janet. The two have already been ripped away from the only family they’ve known, an older Irish woman named Dearblha, who adopted ConaLee’s real father as an infant. He went to fight for the Union but was severely injured and lost his memory. The narration switches between characters and time periods, 1864 and 1874, so is a bit challenging at first. Coincidentally the night watchman at the asylum is ConaLee’s father but he does not recognize Eliza as his wife, due to his amnesia. ConaLee never knew him, he’s been so disfigured by his injuries, Eliza doesn’t recognize him. Dearblha not only is a herbal healer but has second sight and feels he is still alive somewhere. Papa enters the asylum pretending to be a lunatic, and increases the danger for ConaLee and her mother.Does this all sound confusing? All the coincidences make the reader have to suspend disbelief frequently. Why did this book win the Pulitzer Prize? I’m not sure, which is why I only gave it four stars instead of five.
5.0 out of 5 stars A more realistic history
I loved how authentic this story felt. So often in novels, the protagonist goes to a mental hospital or an orphanage and struggles to survive the cruel, unsympathetic people in charge. How refreshing to read a book where the doctors, patrons, nurses, and everyone else is kind and fully committed to making the lives of their patients better! I like to think that back in history, as well as today, most people cared about others. Yes, there is a villain in this book who is despicable, but others step up to counter the evil he's done. I really liked this book.
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed in this book
I disliked the writing of this book. As a former editor I wonder what the author has against quotation marks? Also she would put the dialogue inside of a paragraph. She loves to use a descriptive phrase as a sentence. That aside I love reading Civil War fiction and the story for the most part kept me engaged. A lot of back and forth between time periods but the last chapters did make me happy. I would not have given this a Pulitzer Prize.
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and moving
This novel is not so much about the Civil War as it is about the terrible forces that created it and created the lost souls and injuries both physical and mental to those of the time. Mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, and fathers and children—by blood and by circumstance—find their way by endurance and hope.
4.0 out of 5 stars Confusing and Disturbing, yet action-packed
I have very mixed feelings about Night Watch. I think I was focused more on "Why did this win the 2024 Pulitzer Prize?" than the actual story, which was disturbing yet contrived. The storyline takes place in 1874 and 1864 and is not chronological. So, it is sometimes confusing to understand the order of the various plot elements. The story opens in 1874 with "Papa" dropping off ConaLee, a thirteen-year-old girl, and her mother, Eliza, at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. All three go by different names, and some of their connectedness remains unknown until the story unravels. Their confusing identity sets the stage for many characters with multiple names. It is Reconstruction in the Appalachians of West Virginia, and folks haven't recovered from the Civil War. Each character and erasable personhood mimics the undefined characteristics of states like West Virginia and Americans in the backdrop of the war.As the story progresses and shifts between 1864 and 1874, we learn the backstories of ConaLee, the only first-person voice in the novel, and Eliza. We meet other characters who have experienced war and other traumas. Sometimes, the personal traumas are related to the war and sometimes to social class, gender, or mental health status. The insane asylum's philosophy is one of "moral treatment," which is revolutionary. The asylum was real, and Quaker physician Thomas Story Kirkbride, quoted in the book, was also a real person. Dr. Story, kin of Kirkbride, is fictional yet based on historical information about how to treat the mentally ill if they could seek refuge in such a place.The Night Watch, who is on duty at the asylum when ConaLee and Elize arrive, has severe war injuries and multiple identities throughout the story. His backstory before, during, and after the war provides significant plot developments. Another character, Dearbhla, depicted as an Irish witch and sometimes mistaken for a man, has a history with the Night Watch, Eliza, and ConaLee. Dearbhla, although lower class and probably on par with those enslaved in the social order, takes good care of the main characters and seems to have ESP in protecting them. The only other child in the book is Weed, an orphan treated as a pet at the asylum. Weed, like Dearbhla, has a seemingly magical ability to be aware of more than what the senses can perceive.There are graphic descriptions of sexual and physical abuse in this book, as well as war violence and other human interactions that are in contrast to the "moral treatment" "professed at the asylum. The story illustrates the effects of war and enslavement in myriad ways. To appreciate the messages of this book, one must consider not only the actual fighting and official slavery but also the virtual enslavements between characters. Also essential in the convoluted human relationships included in the novel is the absence and importance of family figures and the continual search for familial nurturing. I have concluded that this book won the Pulitzer because the United States' current divisive issues resonate today with those around the Civil War. As in those days, we must figure out how to adapt to new and changed conditions.
Highly appreciated
Wonderful
Molto apprezzato
Regalo molto apprezzato.
Que llegue
Fantástico
Don't Buy the Fleet paperback 2024 Version: it is missing text
I also found the book hard to put down, difficult as some traumatic scenes are to digest, but this is a war story and war and its aftermath is never pretty. I would give the story itself 5 stars but here come 4 stars because of the copy editor(s) from Fleet. In my paperback 2024 version of this book, I have found so many pages that contain a sentence at the bottom of a page, which is not continue on the top of the next page. One chapter ended with no proper sentence and no period even.At first I chalked it up to the author's writing style but as it occurred many more times throughout the novel, it was rather obvious it was a copy editor's problem! It seems like someone periodically shifted the text to fit but didn't check if it broke the flow of the text. Really annoying, particularly at crucial, revealing parts of the book. I was left to my own imagination to try and fill in what was not to be found in the broken sentences.Once in a while I read a novel with a spelling error or two, but this is my first (and hopefully last!) encounter with a novel that is so poorly printed. Perhaps the original printing would be a better read! A real shame and a disservice to the author's remarkable prose.
Good read
Very good read. Had me gripped right to the end.
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Night Watch (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A novel
AED14365
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Visit the Knopf Store
Night Watch (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A novel
AED14365
Quantity:
Order today to get by 7-14 business days
Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.
Imported From: United States
At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.
BOLO is not an authorized or official retailer for most brands, nor are we affiliated with manufacturers unless specifically stated on a product page. Instead, we source verified sellers, authorized distributors or directly from the manufacturer.
Each product undergoes thorough inspection and verification at our consolidation and fulfilment centers to ensure it meets our strict authenticity and quality standards before being shipped and delivered to you.
If you ever have concerns regarding the authenticity of a product purchased from us, please contact Bolo Support. We will review your inquiry promptly and, if necessary, provide documentation verifying authenticity or offer a suitable resolution.
Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.
All product information, images, descriptions, and reviews originate from the manufacturer or from trusted sellers overseas. BOLO is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or an authorized retailer for most brands listed on our website unless stated otherwise.
While we strive to display accurate information, variations in packaging, labeling, instructions, or formulation may occasionally occur due to regional differences or supplier updates. For detailed or manufacturer-specific information, please contact the brand directly or reach out to BOLO Support for assistance.
Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.
BOLO operates in accordance with the laws and regulations of United Arab Emirates. Any items found to be restricted or prohibited for sale within the UAE will be cancelled prior to shipment. We take proactive measures to ensure that only products permitted for sale in United Arab Emirates are listed on our website.
All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.
All orders are processed manually, and we make every effort to process them promptly once confirmed. Products cancelled due to the above reasons will be permanently removed from listings across the website.
Description:
Editorial Reviews
Review
—Wendy Smith, The Washington Post
“A story of trauma and restoration in the aftermath of the Civil War . . . Ms. Phillips presents harrowing, visceral scenes of war, but a lot of this novel relates the daily business of convalescence in an asylum, with loving attention given to the motley staff that tends to the unwell . . . The theme of healing extends to the plot. Ms. Phillips, who is drawn to depicting the poor, the mentally disabled, the wounded and other vulnerable souls, is a principled practitioner of narrative magic. Not only serendipity but a kind of clairvoyance connects the characters . . . Goodness is a real thing in this novel—a verifiable force—and the question posed is whether we still have the sensitivity to discern it.”
—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Phillips is very good at is capturing a sort of inner dialect, conveyed here in a language inflected with a Southern twang, modulated to reflect characters’ social status and degree of education . . . It is when Phillips channels [these] thoughts that the telling, like the story itself, becomes [so] compelling, even beautiful.”
—Ellen Akins, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Phillips is at the top of her game in Night Watch, devising a mesmerizing plot, which focuses on survival, family and isolation. It is a portrait of a family in peril, and the reader will be impressed with this novel, which rivals [Phillips’s previous novel] National Book Award finalist, Lark And Termite.”
—Wayne Catan, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Phillips’s depiction of a ravaged world in which so many have lost their way or had it stolen from them, both physically and mentally, feels true to the profoundly destabilizing nature of her subject . . . With this excellent novel, Phillips has brought a little more of this foundational American episode into the light.”
—Laird Hunt, The Guardian
“Phillips’ intricately woven storylines are engaging, and her characters range from endearing to haunting . . . There are dozens of passages in Night Watch that deliver moments so vivid, so full of sensory awareness, that they demand both immediate rereading and the folding down of the appropriate page’s corner so they can be revisited. Read this book for those passages. Read it to learn a history you didn’t know you didn’t know. Actually, just read this remarkable novel to be enriched in your understanding of an era that has been so very much forgotten. Read Night Watch to be enlightened.”
—Kristin Macomber, Washington Independent Review of Books
“There is a luminous beauty in Phillips's prose. Whether it is the dark interiors of war—which have become her forte—or the equally complex and fraught lives of so-called ‘ordinary’ people, Phillips brings these theaters of peace and loss, death and transcendence together with a remarkable alchemy.”
—Ken Burns, filmmaker
“Jayne Anne Phillips is a brilliant artist working at the height of her powers. Word by word, and line by line, there is no one better. This novel lives where a startling imagination meets scrupulous research: Night Watch is a tour de force—breathtaking in both its scope and intensity."
—Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage
“A profound meditation on identity, empathy, sanity, daughter-love, nature, and the Civil War, Night Watch will leave you shook and sustained. This novel delivers fictional reckoning that makes way for the potential of real-world reconciliation by delivering complex and necessary testimony and confession. Weaving photographs and fragments of non-fiction prose into an intimate family story, Night Watch is at once shatteringly particular and audaciously universal. Jayne Anne Phillips arrives at the crowning achievement of an extraordinary career.”
—Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints
“Jayne Anne Phillips is a wonderfully gifted storyteller, and few contemporary writers can match the lyricism of her prose, but in this marvelous new novel, largely set in a factual nineteenth-century asylum, she achieves even more: history and imagination merge, and she gives the past a living pulse.”
—Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
“A lovely piece of work . . . Night Watch is another of Jayne Anne Phillips’s intimate revelatory creations.”
—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
“A searing portrait of the cruelties of race, the insanity of war, and the tragedy of its aftermath.”
—Drew Gilpin Faust, author of This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War
“It’s hard to know what to praise first—Jayne Anne Phillips’ signature beautiful sentences, the compelling scenes of battle and their ravaged aftermath, the fascinating portrayal of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride’s ‘moral treatment’ method for the mentally ill, or the vivid depiction of the people and land of West Virginia in the 1860s and 70s. Night Watch takes a highly deserved place among important novels about war and its legacy.”
—Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point
“Gorgeous prose, attention to detail, and masterful characters . . . Set in West Virginia during and after the Civil War, Phillips’ book takes as given that slavery was evil and the war a necessity, focusing instead on lives torn apart by the conflict and on the period’s surprisingly enlightened approach toward care of the mentally ill . . . Pitch-perfect voice . . . Haunting storytelling and a refreshing look at history.”
—Kirkus, starred
“Exquisite attention to detail propels a superb meditation on broken families in post–Civil War West Virginia . . . A profound sense of loss haunts the novel, and Phillips conveys a strong sense of place . . . The bruised and turbulent postbellum era comes alive in Phillips’s page-turning affair.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred
“Vivid . . . Phillips excels in crafting original takes on human circumstances, like mother-daughter relationships and women’s vulnerabilities and resilience. Her setting here is equally striking: the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in rural West Virginia . . . The historical milieu comes alive in all its facets as Phillips evokes the enduring bonds of both blood and chosen families.”
— Booklist
“Tracing an arc from catastrophic damage and loss to recovery through the Civil War and its aftermath, Phillips marries a timeless emotional quality and utterly contemporary sensibility to create a satisfying work in her first novel in a decade . . . Night Watch is escapist in the best sense of the word, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the experience of a distant era and identify deeply with the struggles of the people who lived through it.”
—Harvey Freedenberg, BookPage
About the Author
Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Story that I Felt to my Core
This novel started out slow with sorrow, suffering and abuse. But it evolved into a great story that was so detailed, I felt like I was watching a movie. Very well written. The prose is beautiful, unusual and mesmerizing. A great read.
4.0 out of 5 stars Magical Realism mixes with Historical Fiction
In 1874 in post Civil War West Virginia, twelve-year-old ConaLee and her mute mother are dropped off at lunatic asylum by a low-life drifter named Papa who has given away three younger children. ConaLee is ordered to act like a servant taking care of her mistress who Papa has renamed Miss Janet. The two have already been ripped away from the only family they’ve known, an older Irish woman named Dearblha, who adopted ConaLee’s real father as an infant. He went to fight for the Union but was severely injured and lost his memory. The narration switches between characters and time periods, 1864 and 1874, so is a bit challenging at first. Coincidentally the night watchman at the asylum is ConaLee’s father but he does not recognize Eliza as his wife, due to his amnesia. ConaLee never knew him, he’s been so disfigured by his injuries, Eliza doesn’t recognize him. Dearblha not only is a herbal healer but has second sight and feels he is still alive somewhere. Papa enters the asylum pretending to be a lunatic, and increases the danger for ConaLee and her mother.Does this all sound confusing? All the coincidences make the reader have to suspend disbelief frequently. Why did this book win the Pulitzer Prize? I’m not sure, which is why I only gave it four stars instead of five.
5.0 out of 5 stars A more realistic history
I loved how authentic this story felt. So often in novels, the protagonist goes to a mental hospital or an orphanage and struggles to survive the cruel, unsympathetic people in charge. How refreshing to read a book where the doctors, patrons, nurses, and everyone else is kind and fully committed to making the lives of their patients better! I like to think that back in history, as well as today, most people cared about others. Yes, there is a villain in this book who is despicable, but others step up to counter the evil he's done. I really liked this book.
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed in this book
I disliked the writing of this book. As a former editor I wonder what the author has against quotation marks? Also she would put the dialogue inside of a paragraph. She loves to use a descriptive phrase as a sentence. That aside I love reading Civil War fiction and the story for the most part kept me engaged. A lot of back and forth between time periods but the last chapters did make me happy. I would not have given this a Pulitzer Prize.
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and moving
This novel is not so much about the Civil War as it is about the terrible forces that created it and created the lost souls and injuries both physical and mental to those of the time. Mothers and sons, mothers and daughters, and fathers and children—by blood and by circumstance—find their way by endurance and hope.
4.0 out of 5 stars Confusing and Disturbing, yet action-packed
I have very mixed feelings about Night Watch. I think I was focused more on "Why did this win the 2024 Pulitzer Prize?" than the actual story, which was disturbing yet contrived. The storyline takes place in 1874 and 1864 and is not chronological. So, it is sometimes confusing to understand the order of the various plot elements. The story opens in 1874 with "Papa" dropping off ConaLee, a thirteen-year-old girl, and her mother, Eliza, at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. All three go by different names, and some of their connectedness remains unknown until the story unravels. Their confusing identity sets the stage for many characters with multiple names. It is Reconstruction in the Appalachians of West Virginia, and folks haven't recovered from the Civil War. Each character and erasable personhood mimics the undefined characteristics of states like West Virginia and Americans in the backdrop of the war.As the story progresses and shifts between 1864 and 1874, we learn the backstories of ConaLee, the only first-person voice in the novel, and Eliza. We meet other characters who have experienced war and other traumas. Sometimes, the personal traumas are related to the war and sometimes to social class, gender, or mental health status. The insane asylum's philosophy is one of "moral treatment," which is revolutionary. The asylum was real, and Quaker physician Thomas Story Kirkbride, quoted in the book, was also a real person. Dr. Story, kin of Kirkbride, is fictional yet based on historical information about how to treat the mentally ill if they could seek refuge in such a place.The Night Watch, who is on duty at the asylum when ConaLee and Elize arrive, has severe war injuries and multiple identities throughout the story. His backstory before, during, and after the war provides significant plot developments. Another character, Dearbhla, depicted as an Irish witch and sometimes mistaken for a man, has a history with the Night Watch, Eliza, and ConaLee. Dearbhla, although lower class and probably on par with those enslaved in the social order, takes good care of the main characters and seems to have ESP in protecting them. The only other child in the book is Weed, an orphan treated as a pet at the asylum. Weed, like Dearbhla, has a seemingly magical ability to be aware of more than what the senses can perceive.There are graphic descriptions of sexual and physical abuse in this book, as well as war violence and other human interactions that are in contrast to the "moral treatment" "professed at the asylum. The story illustrates the effects of war and enslavement in myriad ways. To appreciate the messages of this book, one must consider not only the actual fighting and official slavery but also the virtual enslavements between characters. Also essential in the convoluted human relationships included in the novel is the absence and importance of family figures and the continual search for familial nurturing. I have concluded that this book won the Pulitzer because the United States' current divisive issues resonate today with those around the Civil War. As in those days, we must figure out how to adapt to new and changed conditions.
Highly appreciated
Wonderful
Molto apprezzato
Regalo molto apprezzato.
Que llegue
Fantástico
Don't Buy the Fleet paperback 2024 Version: it is missing text
I also found the book hard to put down, difficult as some traumatic scenes are to digest, but this is a war story and war and its aftermath is never pretty. I would give the story itself 5 stars but here come 4 stars because of the copy editor(s) from Fleet. In my paperback 2024 version of this book, I have found so many pages that contain a sentence at the bottom of a page, which is not continue on the top of the next page. One chapter ended with no proper sentence and no period even.At first I chalked it up to the author's writing style but as it occurred many more times throughout the novel, it was rather obvious it was a copy editor's problem! It seems like someone periodically shifted the text to fit but didn't check if it broke the flow of the text. Really annoying, particularly at crucial, revealing parts of the book. I was left to my own imagination to try and fill in what was not to be found in the broken sentences.Once in a while I read a novel with a spelling error or two, but this is my first (and hopefully last!) encounter with a novel that is so poorly printed. Perhaps the original printing would be a better read! A real shame and a disservice to the author's remarkable prose.
Good read
Very good read. Had me gripped right to the end.
More from this brand
Similar items from “Medical”
Share with
Or share with link
https://www.bolo.ae/products/U0451493338