louise erdrich the night watchman review

That describes the novel’s nominal protagonist, Thomas Wazhushk, a night watchman at a plant: “He was named for the muskrat, wazhushk, the lowly, hardworking, water-loving rodent.

Altogether, they compose a portrait of a deeply humane intelligence as well as a profoundly religious patriot and family man.”

In her Afterword, Erdrich writes that her grandfather’s letters “are packed with remarkable, funny, stereotype-breaking episodes of reservation life. Gorneau, an inveterate letter-writer and organizer, took a delegation to Washington, D.C., to plead their case. Watkins, wanted to “emancipate” Indians by ending their legal status. Her story, set in the early 1950s, was inspired by letters and other writing of her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee. Sunday, March 1, at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis. Often applauded as a leader in the contemporary renaissance of Indian writing, Erdrich will introduce her novel at 4 p.m. (Mar.Louise Erdrich’s new novel, “The Night Watchman” (Harper, $28.99) is so engrossing, written with such deep affection for the Chippewa people, and populated with so many interesting characters a reader wishes she could spend time among them on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota. Erdrich’s inspired portrait of her own tribe’s resilient heritage masterfully encompasses an array of characters and historical events. The heartbreaking conclusion to Vera’s story resonates with the pervasive crisis of missing Native American women, while Thomas, Wood Mountain, and his trainer rally to put together a match to raise funds for Thomas’s efforts to keep their land.

Erdrich captures the Chippewa community’s durable network of families, friends, and neighbors, alive or dead, including Pixie’s alcoholic father and wise mother, who live in poverty. Also accompanying them are graduate student Millie Cloud and the ghost of Thomas’s boyhood friend Roderick. Pixie then travels with her uncle Thomas, chairman of the Turtle Mountain Advisory Committee, to Washington, D.C., where he testifies at a congressional hearing on a bill abrogating treaties with Indians and abolishing Indian tribes. Though she fails to find Vera, sparks fly between Pixie and a promising young boxer named Wood Mountain. Pixie Paranteau takes a leave of absence from her job at the Jewel Bearing Plant to search for her sister, Vera, who was last seen in Minneapolis. Erdrich ( Love Medicine) returns to North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Reservation for this stirring tale of a young Chippewa woman and her uncle’s effort to halt the Termination Act of 1953.

Louise erdrich the night watchman review