The Night Watchman
Based on the extraordinary life of Louis Erdrich's grandfather Patrick Gourneau, who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, with lightness and gravity, and unfolds with the elegant prose, sly humor, and depth of feeling of a literary master. 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 from high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that pays barely enough to support her
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The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In 1953, Thomas Wazhashk works as night watchman at a jewel bearing plant on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota, and serves on the tribal council. As Congress takes up a bill to end federal recognition of his band, his niece Pixie vanishes into Minneapolis and Thomas writes letters.
Yes. The Night Watchman won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Louise Erdrich is also the author of Love Medicine, The Round House, and The Sentence, which together form a sweeping literary catalog.
Yes, partly. The Night Watchman is built around the real life of Louise Erdrich's grandfather Patrick Gourneau, who fought against 1953 federal Termination of Native nations. The events and characters are drawn from family and tribal history.
The Night Watchman was written by Louise Erdrich, published in 2020 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
The Night Watchman is 464 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Night Watchman takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Night Watchman is a standalone novel by Louise Erdrich, not part of a series.
The Night Watchman is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
