WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024'
A haunting story of conflict with hope at its heart' Daily Mail'A tour de force - breathtaking in both its scope and intensity' TAYARI JONES'Shatteringly particular and audaciously universal' ALICE RANDALL'Excellent... Phillips has brought a little more of this foundational American episode into the light' GUARDIANIn the wake of the Civil War, twelve-year-old ConaLee and her mother Eliza, who hasn't spoken in more than a year, arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. Delivered to the hospital by a war veteran known to ConaLee as Papa, mother and daughter are soon swept up in the life of the facility and its characters: the night watchman who lost his eye in battle, the child called Weed, the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen, and the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.