Classic Louise Erdrich here. Fans of hers won't be disappointed. Her writing is evocative and characters are memorable. Readers who don't know very much about indigenous history will learn a lot about the ways the US government found to disenfranchise indigenous people, including this little-known episode. Erdrich's family ties to the story add authenticity.

This is the lyrical, beautifully written saga of Pixie and the titular night watchman, Thomas, both members of a Native American tribe in North Dakota and employed at a local jewelry factory.

Pixie is worried about her sister, Vera, who left for a better life, and struggles with living with her alcoholic father, while Thomas is called to testify before congress regarding the relocation act. Slowly, Pixie leaves her job and life behind in search of her sister, and Thomas becomes a voice for his tribe.

This was a moving, beautifully written book, and I was so sad during so much of the reading. Based on actual historical events, this book is moving for all Americans, and should be read and studied for a realistic picture of an American culture too often not represented in literature.

This is a great book.

I appreciate that the writing is lovely on a sentence level and the subject matter is important, but I just could not get into this one. This appears to be an unpopular opinion, but this felt like it was dragging on and on for me. Perhaps I will revisit this selection in the future, but we didn't connect right now.

Another outstanding novel by Erdrich and followed with compelling characters and a little speculative fiction.

Told in alternating voices, The Night Watchman tells the stories of Thomas, the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, and Patrice, a 19 year old, stuck on the reservation. I was mesmerized by the prose as the story unfolded. I was angry and hopeful. I felt defeated and ashamed. Any book that can evoke such emotion in a reader is completely worth it!

Louise Erdrich wrote this book to honor the work of her grandfather, the titular night watchman of a jewel bearing plant, was also a Chippewa tribal chairman who took the fight against the Indian Termination Policy all the way to Washington DC in 1954. Thomas, his fictionalized counterpart has a great story to tell. I only wish Erdrich has let more of his voice through, and not muddied the water with so many ancillary characters.

To be fair, the other characters give a fuller picture of life on the reservation. Perhaps if this book had been presented as a series of interlinked short stories, with Thomas's story to anchor it at the end, it would have worked better. Instead, we jump from one person to another, or see the characters interact in stilted, forced tones and situations. The pieces all add up to a picture of the fragility of life on the reservation, and the danger posed by the Indian Termination Act, but it's a choppy picture, and one that doesn't make for a very satisfying story.

Classic Erdrich. Calm and deliberately paced at the speed of a real day removed from contemporary modern life. The type of real life that fills every one of twenty-four hours, partly with a touch of work related tedium, partly with physical tiredness (how time just stretches when you just want to rest) and partly filled with deliberate inner thought of the characters. No wasted words. Easily visualized settings and people. This is not a book to be rushed through but savored.

The Night Watchman tugs at the reader as Louise Erdrich brings us to 1953 when the US government attempts to remove Native Americans from their land and terminate all support. She explores this tragedy and its effects on these people and shows us not only violence, abuse and death, but also love and hope. Skillfully written, it held my interest throughout.

The Night Watchman is a novel that pulled me in and kept me reading. The characters are well-developed and real. Yet the author was able to weave mystical, spiritual threads throughout the novel which impacted the characters (and the reader). I appreciated learning more about the historical treatment of Native American tribes and also insight how their culture and way of life was deeply impacted. The strong character of Patrice fighting for her own self and her family paralleled Thomas fighting for the Chippewa and rights of all tribes against Congressional actions. A solid read that was worth every page.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I'm having a little trouble distilling my thoughts on The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. My overall impression is one of disjointedness and incompleteness, but I think maybe that was her point?

To summarize the plot, The Night Watchman tells the story of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa in the 1950s. The major crisis of the book is the U.S. government's attempt to terminate federal support of the tribe and remove them from their land. The tribe and their community band together to argue against the bill and preserve their status. As this monumental battle wages in the background (occasionally rising to the foreground), the members of the Turtle Mountain tribe face stark realities of daily life: poverty, abuse, trafficking, identity crises, losing and finding love.

I'm a fan of Ms. Erdrich and have read a few of her previous novels. The Night Watchman isn't my favorite, but it does feel like a deeply personal novel, causing me to give it a careful read. The story is told from many viewpoints. As always, Erdrich's characters are vivid and interesting; I wanted to hear more about several of them and felt they could have had books devoted just to them. The subplots criss-crossed and not all of them connected. This disconnectedness is my strongest criticism of the book, and the aspect that left me feeling the most dissatisfied.

As I read Erdrich's work, my mind kept drawing a comparison to Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Although Erdrich's work is prose, there is a lyrical quality to many of the scenes, especially the dream and vision sequences. The short chapters form vignettes that describe a wide variety of people who are all part of the same community.

The ending was abrupt and made the novel feel unfinished. But on reflection, I think this may have been intentional. It seems to me that Erdrich's goal was not to tell the termination story from start to finish but to take a snapshot in time and show us what it was like to live a few months as part of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa community in the 1950s. And in that respect, I'd say she succeeded.

Recommended for Erdrich fans and literary fiction readers. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

What a great story! Erdrich has written a fiction account, somewhat biographical, of her grandfather's life in the 1950s. As part of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota, they were still very much a community and part of a larger family. A bill, presented in Congress by Arthur Watkins, called for "termination" of the tribe and reservation. The land had been given by treaty to be used by the Native Americans forever. Watkins was a racist and a bigot who thought he knew how the world should be run.

Thomas farmed and worked as a night watchman at the jewel board plant in North Dakota. We meet his extended family and friends and discover how their lives intertwined with many others outside of Turtle Mountain. The characters were so vividly drawn, their beliefs and their culture and knowledge, much of which was passed down generation to generation.

Thomas, educated at boarding school, was very aware of the bigger world outside the area in which he lived. He became aware of the termination bill, and spent most of the rest of his life dealing with it. He fought for what he believed. Erdrich indicated in the end notes that similar terminations are still happening, and how each one of us needs to be aware of these things.

DNF. I couldn't get into the story. It's slow moving and heavy. The writing is dense and I lost track of where I was a few times, needing to re-read passages. I've enjoyed other works by this author so I would still recommend people who like her to give this a try.

Last summer my husband and I met with the Blue Water Indigenous Alliance to donate an heirloom bible given to my husband's fourth-great-grandmother by John Riley, Ojibwe chief of the Black River Band. The bible is currently on display in the Port Huron Museum and will become part of a new museum highlighting native heritage in the Port Huron area.

The 1826 New Testament had been published by the American Bible Society without a binding. Someone encased it in thick, rich brown leather held together with coarse thread. The book has a gentle curve as if kept in a back pocket for a long time, the edge of the book worn away.

My husband's great-great-grandmother read that volume daily until the day of her death, and that made it special to her family, but to hold an artifact that once was in the pocket of their ancestor and kin was even more sacred to those of Native heritage gathered to accept it.

I have often thought about that meeting. For all my research on John Riley and my reading about Native American history, after that meeting I felt my otherness and my ignorance. I read the white man's histories and think I know Riley. What arrogance.

Reading The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich reinforced my awareness of ignorance born of privilege in a European dominated society. I had never heard of the Indian Termination Policy being carried out just after the time of my birth. Natives were to be assimilated with all the rights of an American citizen. It was intended that individuals find work and become self-supporting and pay taxes. Reservations were taken out of Native control, health care and education no longer provided. Life was harsh before termination; it got worse after termination. It was 'extermination' under a new name.

Erdrich's novel is based on her grandfather's life and his successful endeavor to block the termination of the Turtle Mountain Reservation.

The night watchman is the hardworking hero of the story, a family man who works nights at the new factory that employs Ojibwe women to perform the delicate job of creating jewel bearings. He is determined to protect their reservation and people from termination, working around the clock and raising money to travel to Washington, D. C. to present their case before Congress. Their way of life, their community is threatened. They feel a deep connection to the land that supported their ancestors since time immemorial.

Patrice is one of the young Ojibwe women working at the factory. The job allows her to support her mother and brother. She dreams of going to university to study law. She tries to blend into European society but encounters racism and sexual harassment. Two men vie for her attention, unaware of her naivety about relationships and sex and desire.

When Patrice's sister Vera goes to the city disappears, she goes takes all her savings to look for her. It is a nightmarish trip into the depravity of the underside of the city, a place where young native women are vulnerable prey. She returns with Vera's baby.

It is hard to write about this novel. It left me with strong feelings, including deep shame for how the prevalent European society has treated Native Americans since we landed on these shores. Erdrich does not exploit our feelings, there is no melodramatic writing when describing chilling scenes of exploitation and abuse.

The courage and strength of the characters is inspirational. I loved how one love storyline was handled, showing that true love is communal and not about personal desire.

Fiction can educate and enlarge our limited experience. And I thank Erdrich for furthering my understanding.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Excellent entertaining story. Two intertwining interesting characters and plots. Very original. As always Erdrich offers rich unexpected insights into the Native American culture.

Chippewa Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota is the setting for this historical novel by Louise Erdrich. L.E. digs deep, in this story, into the private lives of Native Americans in the 1950s. The detailed description of poverty is heartbreaking. The Chippewa Nation lives on practically nothing. Then Arthur V. Watkins proposes a bill to terminate the N.A. status, something that has been going on for hundreds of years in various parts of the country.

L.E. gives us versions of her ancestors, making the magical realism of the spirit world unique and breathtaking. The humor amidst the pain and suffering is a welcome relief and presents irony at its best. The bulk of the character development is around the women of the nation, particularly Patrice and her mother, Zhaanat, who has a spiritual or herbal comfort for every hurt and bruise. The actions of the various characters' actions vary between saintly and devilish. I agreed with the things done sometimes, to survive or to provide communal justice. I'd love to spend some time with this community of exceptional people, learn some language, cry with them, and laugh at the world none of us can escape.

Thank you to Louise Erdrich, Harper, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this E-ARC and give it my response.

As usual, Louise Erdrich doesn't disappoint. She mentions how she was sick with the flu during the winter, fretting she may never writer again, then she started reading her grandfather's letters about his fight against their forced relocation, and this wonderful novel blossomed.
In this novel, there are two sisters, and the older one leaves the reservation, whereas the younger one, the sister who was the class valedictorian, stays behind, until she worries about her sister and sets out to find her.
Without giving too much away, since some of the excerpts say way too much, I will say this novel has romance, broken hearts, grief, optimism, history, and intrigue.

I hate the things that happened to Vera, much of what the readers were actually spared, yet we can read between the lines. I love how one friend, a shy suitor, goes out of his way to protect the younger sister, Patice, and Vera's baby.

Unlike some of her other novels, this one plays a bit more with lyricism and visions. I'm glad Erdrich recovered from her flu and penned this great novel.

After more than three centuries of European interaction with the native peoples they encountered in America—all too often marked by mistreatment, decimation due to imported disease, forced relocation, and abrogated treaties—tribal members were struggling to eke out a living on reservations. Against this backdrop, prolific Native American author Louise Erdrich relates an episode in the history of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. In The Night Watchman, based on the experiences of her grandfather, she tells the powerful story of the native residents of North Dakota at a pivotal time in their history. In alternate chapters, the author introduces readers to individuals whose lives intertwine in meaningful ways.

As the story opens in September, 1953, we meet Thomas Wazhushk, tribal chairman and night watchman at the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant. In between inspection rounds, Thomas reads and writes both official letters to government officials and personal missives to family members.

When Thomas drives to work one night, he has a reason to be concerned: there is a new government plan to “solve” the Indian problem. A bill, authored by Senator Arthur V. Watkins, refers to the proposal as emancipation and intends to do away with all treaties. In short, Native peoples would lose their land and their status as a people. So Thomas understands that his tribal chairman position is now a struggle for Indians' continued existence and survival. Realizing that the Chippewa and other tribes stand to lose everything, he puts into motion an effort to fight the disastrous legislation.

Patrice Parenteau is a young woman with a different set of concerns. The 19-year-old works at the factory drilling jewel blanks to be used in the defense industry and watches. Patrice, whose family relies on her income, is happy for the job. Yet, there are clouds in her life: an alcoholic father who wreaks havoc whenever he is around and the disappearance of her older sister, Vera. After receiving money and job training from the Placement and Relocation Service, Vera married and moved to Minneapolis. However, the sisters’ wise mother Zhanaat has not heard from her older daughter in months, and the family fears for her safety.

Wood Mountain is a talented boxer trained by white math teacher and coach Lloyd Barnes. The young man hopes Patrice will return the affection he feels for her. However, there are other matters vying for her attention: the need to keep her job, a plan to make a new life for herself in Minneapolis, a growing involvement with Thomas’ efforts to defeat Watkins’ legislation, and the decision to go to “the Cities” to look for her sister.

As Thomas explores ways to fight the proposed legislation, he learns from his father—who signed a treaty meant to “last forever”—about an earlier successful attempt to keep Chippewa land: circulate a petition supporting a delegation to attend a hearing. With the help of fellow tribal members, the chairman publicizes the danger and takes steps to do battle for his people.

Author Louise Erdrich skillfully weaves the experiences of Thomas, Patrice, Wood Mountain, and their friends, adversaries, and family members into a meaningful tapestry. She uses her gift of language to provide insights into the realities of their lives and struggles:

“Freed from being Indians was the idea. Emancipated from their land. Freed from the treaties that Thomas’ father and grandfather had signed and that were promised to last forever. So as usual, by getting rid of us, the Indian problem would be solved. Overnight the tribal chairman job had turned into a struggle to remain a problem. Not to be solved.”

“It’s in their religion to change Indians into whites.”
“I thought that was a government job.”

The novel is free of offensive language. There are, however, a few sexual episodes which lessen its desirability for some individuals and groups.

In Erdrich’s tribute to her grandfather, she peoples her novel with a cast of colorful, well-rounded, and believable fictional characters (Thomas and Senator Watkins are the only two historical figures in the novel). Their thoughts, fears, ambitions, dreams, and experiences are true-to-life. The above-mentioned skillful use of alternate chapters paints a vivid picture of mid-20th-century individual and collective life of American Indians on and off the reservation. The Night Watchman is a valuable addition to fictional and factual literature depicting the experiences of native peoples of all nations.

Reviewed on Goodreads. Link below. Thanks to publisher and Netgalley for advanced reading. Looking forward to publication date.

Goodreads review:
Thanks to publisher and Netgalley for this early chance to reconnect with the world and wisdom of Louise Erdrich. Patrice and Thomas and Wood Mountain and Millie are characters that feel familiar even though new. The author’s own afterword sheds light on what’s fact and what is fiction in this recreation of 1950’s life. Loved it. Predicting big sales.

Be still my heart.......

You are only as strong as the strength of your word......be it from the vastness of the government and its treaties to the inner workings and core of the single human individual.

Louise Erdrich gifts us with an amazing novel birthed from the letters and personal actions of her own grandfather. Erdrich, at one point, felt an arid dryness that visits upon talented authors when the story just does not come. But it was then that she considered visiting the source. The source, for most of us, are the links channeling back to where we find our beginnings: Family.

Erdrich takes us to the Turtle Mountain Reservation with the Chippewa in September of 1953. Thomas Wazhushk works as a night watchman at a jewel bearings facility. The bits of jewels are used in Bulova watches and in drilling for the Defense Department. Staying awake in the wee hours has been a challenge for Thomas. But Thomas vents a strong internal energy of trying to right the wrongs by the U.S. Government toward Native Americans.

A new law is being presented in 1953 that will cause the termination of Native American tribes on reservations in North Dakota. The government visualizes that these tribes are self-sustaining and no longer need government assistance. They are ridiculed for not farming when the land where they reside is near barren. Poverty has taken root far deeper than any stalks of corn.

Thomas begins organizing his thoughts and his options and writes to congressmen, heads of committees, and government officials to make his case. Erdrich showcases Thomas' drive to empower those on the reservation to present their opposition to the pending law in Washington, D.C.. They will ban together and make the arduous trip with the strength of their convictions.

As the story unfolds, we will meet the members of Thomas' family and also the extended families of the reservation. Front and center will be the character of Patrice "Pixie" Paranteau who works in the facility. We will come to see the impact of her presence that extends from within herself, the tribe, and an unexpected trip to Minneapolis. Erdrich lines this story with remarkable characters who fill in both large and small deposits on the human spectrum. They are colorful, comical, lively, pensive, irreverent, determined, and complicated. The Night Watchman is a granddaughter's honorable blessing to those who came before her. And no one does it like Louise Erdrich.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to HarperCollins Publishers and to the highly talented Louise Erdrich.

Who is a Native American? What does it mean to be a member of a Native American tribe? What to men of the tribe owe the women, and vice versa? If the Constitution doesn’t apply to them, as it didn’t for much of the history of the United States, do Native Americans have inalienable rights? Or can the American government chip away at their sovereignty until there’s nothing left? Louise Erdrich wrestles with all of these questions and more in The Night Watchman. Like many of her previous novels, this book jumps from character to character on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota to create a group portrait of people living in the shadow of personal and tribal history.

The Night Watchman takes us back to 1953 and 1954, and primarily follows two characters. First, we meet Thomas Wazhushk during one of his shifts as a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant. It’s a good job, but Thomas uses the time between the patrols to do work that he thinks is more important: helping the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewa survive. Second, Patrice Paranteau offers us a view into life in one of the poorest family’s on the reservation. While the Wazhushk family seem to be getting on fairly well, comparatively, the Paranteaus live in a tar paper house and eat whatever Patrice’s mother can grow and forage. Patrice’s job at the jewel bearing plant is the only thing bringing in money. These two characters, paired with the perspectives of a White teacher at the local school, a young man who has a crush on Patrice, Patrice’s alcoholic father, a mixed-race woman who became an academic, and a few others, serve as spaces for Erdrich to meditate on identity, duty, and other ideas—although I want to be clear that Erdrich’s characters are all fully realized.

The night that we meet Thomas comes shortly after he learns that Congress is about to visit one more indignity upon his people. Within twelve months, Congress plans to pass a termination bill for the Chippewa. This bill will strip the tribe of federal recognition; invalidate all treaties; break up the reservation; and divest the federal government of all social, medical, educational, and financial support for the tribe. (It really helped to have recently read Ada Deer’s account of her own tribe’s fight with termination, over at LitHub, before I read this book. Erdrich is clear, but a little light on historical detail.) Congress is trying to sell termination as a way to make the Chippewa into “real” Americans. Thomas and his fellow elders intend to fight termination to the last. Congress and White people have taken just about everything else; they are not going to be allowed to take away the Chippewa’s identity.

Meanwhile, Patrice is growing up quickly. To be honest, Patrice never really got much of a chance to be a child, with an alcoholic father and a mother doing everything she could to keep them alive. As the sole breadwinner, Patrice doesn’t have much time for either her quest to find her missing sister or deal with the longings of two young(ish) men who want her. Thomas’ chapters show us the macro view of survival at Turtle Mountain. Patrice’s chapters are a lot closer to the bone.

All this may sound grim—and a lot of is—but one of the things I like about Erdrich is that she always has comic relief in her novels. Some of that humor comes from older characters talking about sex; the old people in Erdrich’s novels always make me cackle. A lot of the humor in this book comes from the experiences of two hapless Mormon missionaries who are on the reservation to covert that Lamanites. (In another stroke of serendipity, living in Utah has made it easy for me to find people who will translate LDS-ese for me. I would recommend some background reading* to fully understand what’s going on with these characters.) I laughed out loud when the missionaries introduced themselves to tribal elders as “elders”–male missionaries call themselves this, even though they’re usually in their late teens or early twenties. I could just see the eyebrows going up. I also had to laugh at some of Thomas’ thoughts about the, um, origin story of the LDS faith. The people who sent those missionaries should have known better than to try and sell their story to a people who are master story-tellers.

The Night Watchman is not my favorite of Erdrich’s novels. (The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse is my favorite, with The Round House a close second.) It was a little too muddled for me. Erdrich built this book by blending her own family history with research she had done on the termination policy. Consequently, I think, The Night Watchman just tries to do too much while trying to argue its thesis. I tend to enjoy Erdrich’s novels more when they are more tightly focused on a character (like the ones I mentioned) or when they are much more diffuse, and just tell stories about characters that share a place and a time. Although this is not my favorite book in Erdrich’s oeuvre, I really enjoyed the characters, the pathos of their fights, the humor, and the supernatural notes. I also think that this book would be a great choice for a book group. There are so many questions to tackle that a group could talk about this book for hours.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley, for review consideration.

* Or listen to the brilliant (but occasionally raunchy) five part series the guys at Last Podcast on the Life did on Mormonism.