Louise Erdrich is a name I feel like I’ve heard many times for so long I can’t remember first hearing it. I’ve had at least two of her other books on my shelves for years – if not decades at this point – and yet this is the first of her books I’ve actually read all the way through.
Erdrich tackles her own family history in this story set on a Chippewa reserve in the 1950s. The tribe is in the midst of dealing with a new threat – the government is seeking to “emancipate” Native Americans with a bill that would do away with their treaty rights, abdicate all responsibility for their needs and remove the tribe from their land to be “relocated” to urban centres. Not only is this a blatant attempt to go back on the rights established with Native Americans long before, but it is a threat to both the way of life and the very lives of every character we meet in this book.
The story is based on Erdrich’s own grandfather’s experiences (though it is novelized) and she explores the deep and emotional connections she has to this history in beautifully imagined characters. Each one is brought to life and becomes as real by the end of the book as if I’d sat down with them over tea to hear their story first-hand. There’s a skilled interweaving of traditional beliefs and knowledge with the modern (well, 1950s) world in such a way that it feels completely natural for the ghost of a dead boy to be as real a presence in the room as the living people. One of the main characters, Patrice, is looking for her sister who went to the city with her boyfriend and has since disappeared. It becomes an easily accepted part of the plot that both Patrice and her mother know Vera (the sister) is alive, they know some of what is happening to her, they know she has a baby – even though no one has talked to her. This is not strange or weird in this world – it is part of the rich internal landscape of the characters, and it fits with them perfectly.
I loved that we get to know several different characters as their stories intertwine and overlap, I love that Patrice seems to walk through the world with a protective cloak wrapped around her – she walks straight into the lion’s den and somehow comes out untouched by its darkness and pain. She is able to navigate the city as easily as the woods in her own backyard, and she is a tough, sensitive, independent, curious young woman who has been through some horrible things and yet seems imbued with a particular magic all her own. Thomas, the title character, is drawn with clear love and respect. He is hardworking, takes care in his work, spends his spare time working on a case to appeal for the rights of his people, is devoted to his family and feels a deep sense of responsibility for his people and their land. Even Wood Mountain, the local boxing sensation, is drawn with a sensitivity that gives him many more layers. His love for a baby who is not his own and the connection he forges with the child is deeply moving and the chapters from his perspective were some of the more touching ones in the story. I like that none of the characters is exactly what they seem on the surface – each has a particular strength, each is connected to their community and takes pride in their culture and the knowledge that has been passed down to them.
It took me a while to feel like I had really found my feet in this story, but once I did they were firmly planted. By the end of the book I felt like I really knew the characters, I cared for them, and I had a deep sense of respect for them. I felt Erdrich’s love for her family and her history on every page of this book, and yet she doesn’t create a false narrative. She confronts the horrors visited upon Native communities in America throughout history, the limits that have been put on their resources, the pain they have had to bear and the prejudice and injustice that is still such a large and horrible part of their experiences, no matter where they live. The treatment (both historic and present) of Indigenous populations is something I find deeply upsetting and despicable, and that is represented here, but done so with such tenderness that it doesn’t feel like a horrible news story that you can distance yourself form. It feels like you’re living it with her, and seeing the beauty in a way of life that has been (and is still being) deliberately stamped out.
In case you can’t tell by now, I loved this book. I got so much from it, and I highly recommend it. It is long, and it will take some effort to get to know a large cast of characters and understand their connections to one another, but it is more than worth it and your efforts will be repaid in full. I’m so glad that I read this book – and that I finally got to experience Erdrich’s writing. It has lived up to my expectations and exceeded them.
One final note – I listened to this as an audiobook, and I’d definitely recommend that format, particularly if you are struggling with the text. It is read by the author, which definitely adds some layers to the experience. Highly recommended!
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C., this powerful novel explores themes of love and death with lightness and gravity and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a master craftsman.
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?
Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.
Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.
In The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure. – Goodreads
Book Title: The Night Watchman
Author: Louise Erdrich
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook
Published By: Harper
Released: March 3, 2020
Genre: Fiction, Historical, First Nations, Family
Pages: 453
Date Read: February 16-23, 2021
Rating: 9/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.14/5 (16,628 ratings)
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