I have for many years made a practice of reading prize winning books in fiction, nonfiction, and juvenile fiction. I don't read every prize winner every year or even most of them in some years. I chose to read this one because someone I know on social media recommended it, and it is a 2024 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. The brief description of the novel on the official website of the Pulitzers says this about the book:
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. (Pulitzer Prizes website 2024)
The novel is set primarily in West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which was one of the earliest such mental institutions in America beginning shortly after the states of Maine and Kentucky built the first two such institutions. The novel is set in the times shortly before, during, and after the Civil War, and is centered on three women in the mountains of West Virginia, and the Civil War sharpshooter who is the son, husband, and father of the three women respectively. The sharpshooter has been seriously injured during the war and has no memory of who he is, his name, or personal history. But he has become skilled in caring for the mentally ill while in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, and has been referred to the asylum as a night watchman and general aide to the doctor. The man's mother is a root woman, an herb doctor, or healer. The man's wife and daughter, along with the older woman, are living high in the mountains of West Virginia while he is away in the war and are the victims of marauders from both sides of the conflict at times. The antagonist in the novel is a Rebel sympathizer who is wandering the countryside alone preying on whomever he can find who is too weak to defend themselves against him. He moves in with or on the young woman's mother, victimizes the two of them in every way possible and finally drops off the girl and her mother, who has become nonverbal as a result of his rape and abuse of her, at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and disappears before returning as an inmate of the institution. The girl has been ordered to tell the asylum staff that the mother is not related to her, and she is simply a teenage orphan who has been caring for the woman. The ruse works and the mother is admitted as a patient while her daughter is taken in as an unpaid aide for her mother.
Eventually, the mother begins to talk and continues the lie their attacker has forced them to tell. But she also becomes enamored of the doctor in charge of the institution and the feelings are mutual. Her daughter is eventually made a full time nurse, a position which did not require formal educational training or a degree in the 19th century. When their attacker is brought to the asylum, he is in a violent rage and placed in a locked ward from which he eventually escapes. The novel comes to a violent climax with the building on fire, the attacker returned to try to murder the women, and, in the meantime the night watchman's wife has recognized him and they have come to tell the doctor they are married and intend to leave to go back to the mountains. The attacker climbs through the window of the doctor's office as that conversation has begun and attacks the group. The sharpshooter is shot and killed just as he manages to throw the attacker out a third story window to his death. All the loose ends are quickly tied up and the girl's mother marries the doctor, the grandmother takes the girl back to the mountains, and all is well that ends well.
This is a good novel but not a great novel. It does contain the bones of what could have been a great novel. But after years of reading many winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer, and other literary prizes, for me the novel is a disappointment. It is poorly organized, leaves far too many issues hanging at times, and could have been a far better book with a serious rewrite. I realize when I say such things about a book which others rave about, I have set myself up for anything from a mild sneer of derision to outright claims of ignorance on my part. The author has a fine resume both as a writer and a trainer of writers. This is her sixth novel and twelfth book. It is also the first of her books I have ever read and it is possible that I am not giving her enough credit. But I really do believe that she, her agent, her editor, and the Pulitzer committee all accepted less than what could have become her best work and a worthy prize winner. I'd love to have seen this book in a better form after another month or two of work from the author and her editor. But you might also read it and rave. Don't take my distaste for the book as a total red flag. If you like the sound of the plot, read it, and form your own opinion.
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