NIGHT WHEREVER WE GO
A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners
The story begins on a struggling Texas plantation, where six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.
Now each woman must make a choice. Nan, the healer of the group, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings, which can stave off pregnancy when chewed daily. If they all take part, maybe they can keep the man from returning. Whereas a child born of him will only encourage the Lucys further. Not to mention, the plan itself. If discovered, they will all be in grave danger.
Visceral and arresting, NIGHT WHEREVER WE GO illuminates each woman’s individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America’s gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power.
Barnes & Noble Discover Pick (January 2023)
Shortlisted for The Center for Fiction 2023 Debut Novel Prize
Finalist for the California Book Award for First Fiction
Finalist in Historical Fiction for the Women Writing the West 2024 WILLA Literary Award
Finalist for the 2023 Martin Cruz Smith Award (California Indie Bookseller Alliance)
Longlisted for 2023 Crook's Corner Book Prize
One of Audible’s Best of 2023 Debuts
An Amazon Best of January Editor’s Pick
One of Washington Post’s “10 Noteworthy Books for January”
One of Atlanta Journal Constitution’s “7 Books You’ll Want to Read in 2023”
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PRAISE for
Night Wherever We Go
“Fierce, stirring, ablaze with insight and power, and transcendent!”
— MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON, author of On the Rooftop
“A powerful and inspired achievement. Tracey Rose Peyton gives voice to the enslaved women of this nation’s past who have, for far too long, had their voices gone unheard in the annals of history. She does them justice and then some. This one is not to be missed.”
— NATHAN HARRIS, author of The Sweetness of Water
“Night Wherever We Go is extraordinary: a beautiful book about harrowing things, beautiful because of its understanding of humanity, its astonishing language, and the plain brilliance of its author. I'm not sure I've recovered from the experience of reading it, or ever will, or ever should.”
—ELIZABETH McCRACKEN, author of The Hero of this Book
“In finding a completely innovative way to write about Texas, Tracey Rose Peyton has found a wholly innovative way to write about the cost and debt of freedoms in this nation. The prose here is never wieldy, though the ideas and particularly, the explorations of longing while Black are wonderfully layered. Night Wherever We Go has the potential to change how Blacknesses, Texas and the nation are written about forever.”
—KIESE LAYMON, author of Long Division
“Night Wherever We Go is a tale of epic survival, a song of collective resilience, an intimate exploration of love, friendship and sisterhood in the face of harrowing cruelty and injustice. In lyrical and precise prose, Tracey Rose Peyton evokes an indelible portrait of each woman's complicated desires, hopes and fears. And in spite of the characters' difficult lives, this is a book about joy and transcendence as much as it is about trauma and loss. The complex and varied voices of the women that inhabit Night Wherever We Go make it a haunting, powerful and utterly unforgettable read.”
— RACHEL HENG, author of Suicide Club