THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich, HarperCollins, 2020, 444 pp

 

This is the best book I have read so far this year. Three of my reading groups chose it so I am having the experience of discussing it with a total of 14 women. In the two discussions I have had so far, everyone loved it and a common statement is, " I didn't want the book to end." This is a testament to how much Louise Erdrich gets the reader involved with her characters.

 

She based her story on her grandfather, a factory night watchman and resident of the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. His fictional name is Thomas, he is a Chippewa, a man of great courage and intelligence but most of all persistence.

Thomas learns of a new "emancipation" bill on its way to Congress, a bill that will terminate the rights of his people to land "given" to them by a United States treaty that stated it was to last "for as long as the grasses grow and the rivers run." It is 1953. Should the bill pass not only will they lose their land but also their identity as Chippewa people.

Thomas spends his hours at night on the job, between regular inspections of the factory, reading the bill until he understands its words and its intentions. He then involves the people of the reservation in a bold plan to go before Congress and fight against the bill's passage.

Despite their poverty and the forces that have driven some to alcohol, have driven a daughter to run away to Minneapolis and become lost, the tribe includes characters who work against terrible odds to better their families and keep them together. One of these is 17 year old Patrice, who goes in search of her lost sister and sets in motion events that will affect the entire tribe, including a ghost!

Louise Erdrich writes with such smooth yet fiery storytelling. She shows how an oppressed people can use skills forced on them by the White man to their advantage in overcoming that oppression without losing the beliefs and understanding of their connection to their land and each other.

She gives new meaning to intelligence, compassion and courage. All the while she injects humor and a certain kind of magic trickster into this incredible tale of survival and triumph.