Engaging, arresting ... Where those novels provide a refreshing expansion of how we think about sexuality and masculinity under slavery and Reconstruction, Peyton adds new dimensions of gender and faith. The community of enslaved women is determined to keep their beliefs in spirits and their gods ... The narrative thread of Night Wherever We Go can be hard to follow — there are moments when it’s not clear which of the characters is narrating what we see, or how we are to understand the appearance of letters from a character who has set off on a journey without any access to pen or paper. But the arc of the story is intriguing enough to carry these details ... A nontraditional love story, in that it asks us to remember that changing our personal history — acting with whatever power, big or small, we have in our reach — transforms our communities, too. Even when we feel there are no good choices, we are always choosing between the risk of attempting to control an uncontrollable destiny, and the comfort of surrendering to a situation in order to survive.
Powerful if uneven ... As a meditation on motherhood and bodily autonomy, this mostly succeeds, particularly in the novel’s closing chapters, yet the author’s choice to frequently shift perspective from the women to an omniscient narrator doesn’t quite work. Still, it’s clear Peyton has much talent to burn.
Searing ... Peyton weaves through the minds and spirits of her large cast of characters with insight and ease. The novel moves deftly between the third person and a collective 'we' narrative, revealing the women's intimate interconnectedness and the intersectional interplay of age, race, gender, religion, and social status in the struggle to survive amid the horrors of life on the plantation ... Alternately suspenseful and poetic, this novel marks the beginning of a promising career for Peyton.
