Jayne Phillips

A luminous memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jayne Anne PhillipsJayne Anne Phillips grew up in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. The distinctly American landscape of Appalachia - dense with forests and small churches, rich in history and misunderstandings - has been the great setting for her fiction, even as she and her boundless imagination have travelled to other times and places. In Small Town Girls, Phillips recreates the place she calls home, its foundational truths and the densely woven ties between the women of the town. She traces her journey across the country in search of love and work and belonging and offers insights into the fellow writers and touchstones that moved and influenced her. From the local beauty salon to the legendary Hatfield-McCoy feud, from Jean Shrimpton and Barbara Stanwyck to Stephen Crane and Breece D'J Pancake, Phillips ponders her relationship with inspiration, spirituality, culture, and the troubled annals of the last American centuries. Sparkling with wisdom and open-heartedness, Small Town Girls is part coming-of-age story, part social history, Jayne Anne Phillips's most personal, most accessible book yet - a love letter to the place and the people who have shaped her perceptions and her writing. 'Beautifully written... shines a light on the ways small towns created American girls, and the ways in which American girls created their small towns' ALICE RANDALL'A brilliant, wide-ranging book, nostalgic and tough-minded at the same time' TOM PERROTTA'Phillips' prose is unflagging in its beauty and rhythm... West Virginia has no more eloquent and grateful daughter' KIRKUS, STARRED REVIEW

A deeply moving novel about hopeful beginnings and profound endings - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch''A brilliant writer, utterly original and with an astonishing range'' IAN McEWAN''Phillips combines extraordinary perception with extraordinary versatility and power'' MARGARET ATWOOD''Shimmering prose, fierce realism and probing meditativeness'' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH''The beauty and originality of MotherKind are undeniable'' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENTOne summer''s day, 30-year-old Kate flies to her Appalachian hometown to tell her mother she is pregnant. But when she arrives, her mother reveals that she doesn''t have long to live. Kate is suddenly thrust into roles of enormous responsibility, caring for both her child and her terminally ill mother. In the same year that she watches her newborn grow, Kate witnesses the gradual disappearance of a woman who has been her best friend and mentor her entire life, and is forced to reckon with devastating loss alongside a joyful new beginning.

A story of love, murder and obsession - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch''Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year... A compulsively readable story'' STEPHEN KING''Combines a strange hypnotic and poetic power with the sharp tones of documentary evidence'' COLM TOIBIN''Superb'' SUNDAY TIMES''Absorbing and captivating'' GUARDIANChicago, 1931. Asta Eicher, a lonely widow with three children, is swept off her feet by charismatic Harry Powers. After a hasty courtship, she agrees to move across the country to Quiet Dell, his farm in Appalachia. She and her children are never seen again.Emily Thornhill, one of the few female journalists in Chicago, is sent to West Virginia to cover the case. The deeper her investigation leads, the more obsessed she becomes with Asta''s disappearance - until she finally uncovers the terrifying truth.

A powerful tale of grief and survival - from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Night Watch''This novel is cut like a diamond, with such sharp authenticity and bursts of light'' ALICE MUNRO''Extraordinary and luminous... the best novel I''ve read this year'' JUNOT DIAZ''Incandescent and utterly original'' NEW YORK TIMES''A glowing, powerful and immensely readable paean to the power of family'' INDEPENDENTIn 1950s West Virginia, seventeen-year-old Lark and her younger half-brother Termite, who is unable to walk or talk, are being raised by their Aunt Nonie. Their mother Lola is absent, Termite''s father is still caught up in the chaos of the Korean War, and Lark doesn''t even know who her father is.One night, a flood roars through town. Amid the debris and destruction, the truths of Lark''s personal history begin to surface. And as the mysteries of the past come to light, the lives of Lark and Termite will be changed forever.

In 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. There, far from family and the mountain home they knew, ConaLee and Eliza try to reclaim their lives, and uncover identities lost, hidden or unknown. Night Watch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2024 on 6 May 2024