Enemy Women: A Novel

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison.

But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.

Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise . . . seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison.

But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.

Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise . . . seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.

“Jiles has created an unsentimental yet tender world of destruction, despair, and hope that’s a joy to inhabit.” - Entertainment Weekly

“An impressive first novel ... Jile’s skill as a poet shine throughout the novel as her light, brush-stroke sentences constantly surprise with their alternating beauty, humor, and horror.” - San Francisco Chronicle

“Compelling ... Comparing Enemy Women and Cold Mountain doesn’t quite do Jile’s novel justice.” - Washington Post Book World

“Comparing Enemy Women to Cold Mountain doesn’t quite do Jiles’s novel justice.” - Washington Post

“You know what it means when there is Paulette Jiles inside? Be smart. Open the book.” - Gordon Lish

“ENEMY WOMEN...has a Homeresque feel to it. Like something written by an old soul.” - Carolyn Chute

“Jiles has created an unsentimental yet tender world of destruction, despair, and hope that’s a joy to inhabit.” - Entertainment Weekly

“Jiles paints the struggles of the era with the same intensity as Charles Frazier’s 1997 bestseller Cold Mountain …” - People

“Sure to be touted as a new COLD MOUNTAIN...stark, unsentimental, yet touching novel will not suffer in comparison.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A remarkable debut… Splendid.” - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“…beautifully written passages…a real page-turner.” - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“...[G]ifted Missouri historian...acutely portrays Missouri’s logistic misfortune as a hotbed of both Union and Confederate violence.” - Booklist

“Enemy Women is all strength and poetry, as are history’s grandest ordinary women and extraordinary writing.” - Kaye Gibbons

“ENEMY WOMEN deserves the Pulitzer Prize.” - Toronto Globe and Mail

“I loved…it provides the greatest suspense a story can offer: will someone we’ve come to love persevere and prosper?” - Anna Quindlen

“…remarkable happens...it becomes inspired… Adair becomes a storyteller in order to survive. And so - triumphantly - does Paulette Jiles.” - New York Times Book Review (cover)

“This is a book with backbone, written with tough, haunting eloquence.” - New York Times