The Night Watchman

Written by Louise Erdrich

Narrated by Louise Erdrich

WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

WASHINGTON POST, AMAZON, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF 2020

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Mar 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062983893

Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, is the award-winning author of many novels as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Erdrich lives in Minnesota with her daughters and is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore. 

Reviews for The Night Watchman

[Pprbkwrtr · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I am still thinking about this book weeks after finishing it. Images or phrases will just pop into my head and at first I don’t know where I’ve heard or seen them before, and then I remember. Erdrich’s narration is wonderful, like a warm blanket and a fire on a cold night. I plan to listen to everything she’s narrated herself. Cant recommend this highly enough.

[Peg Watt-Morse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wondering writing. Story that weaves in and out of so many lives.

[George Szmaj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reveals so much about the Indians
Best question
How would you like it if I came into your country took your land and told you how to worship

[dandiercks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the second Louise Erdrich book I’ve read. The first was “The Sentence.” Both were superbly written. I listened to the audio version of “The Night Watchman,” and in doing so, I probably didn’t give it a fair chance to earn a fifth star. I routinely listen to books during my daily 30-minute treadmill walk and while doing yard work. Because of that I don’t always devote 100% of my attention to it and often lose track of the plot development. That happened with this book. The story is fiction based on a true story, the life of Erdrich’s grandfather and his successful attempt to keep his Turtle Mountain Band of Chippawa Indian tribe from being “terminated” in the 1950s. Erdrich narrates her book, and as anyone who listens to audio books knows, the narrator can make or break a book. In this case Erdrich does a marvelous job of telling her story. Her pronunciations when reading Indian dialogue sound authentic. I’m not surprised that this book was a Pulitzer Prize winner, and I recommend it to all readers.

[tytania-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it OK, but I think it was slow to start; and the part with her dressing as Babe the blue ox in a rubber suit and doing tricks underwater? I though that was ridiculous. A mermaid I would understand, but not an ox.That turned out not to be a pivotal plot development.I did like Patrice. I like that when a rape was attempted upon her, she escaped, and immediately told her mother everything, and cursed the guy who did it.I liked the character of Millie Cloud even better. A studio room, a hot plate and electric kettle, and a space heater, and she was set. That's the life for me.I like this quote: "You cannot feel time grind against you. Time is nothing but everything, not the seconds, minutes, hours, days, years. Yet this substanceless substance, this bending and shaping, this warping, this is the way we understand our world."

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Erdrich reprises her grandfather's life in this historical fiction piece set in North Dakota in 1953 and 1954. The U.S. government seeks to terminate its treaties with Native American tribes after taking their land, culture, language and way of life. Members of the tribe and others in the area help him to stop the termination process. There is a tragic storyline involving Pixie's sister Vera who leaves home to find a job in the Twin Cities and is kidnapped and sex trafficked in a ship that travels the Great Lakes. She is able to escape and eventually make her way home when she becomes so sick the sailors are afraid she will die on board. Lots of tension here between the "old ways" and the lure of the new factory and the big city. Wonderful story.

[donnaeverhart · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book!

At first I was having a hard time keeping up with who was who, and for a while it was only Thomas and Pixie (Patrice) I wanted to hear from. That soon changed. I became enthralled with Wood Mountain, Vera, Rose, Juggie, Zhanaat, Millie, Doris, Valentine, and Vernon and Elnath, as well as many others. Erdrich's depictions of the members of the Turtle Mountain Chippewas, and their interactions with one another and those on the "outside" made me think and, well, yes --> LOL - often. (!)

There was sadness in this story, too. There is abuse, injustice, misunderstanding, assimilation, identity, and belief struggles, along with the will to "exist," (literally). The narrative was so entertaining, but also educational, opening this reader's eyes to the differences in culture. With expertise and keen insight, that can only be offered in the truest of senses, i.e. from genuine knowledge and experiences, Erdrich is certainly writing what she knows.

I already miss these characters! Highly recommend.

[auntieg0412 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I’ve read several of Erdrich’s books and they are all moving, thought-provoking, beautifully told stories. This one especially, because it is based on her grandfather’s life. Simply magnificent.

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Previous books by Erdrich that I have tried reading didn't really connect with me, but I was drawn into this novel right away by the precisely drawn two main characters, Thomas and Patrice. They led me by the hand into this novel about life on the reservation in the 1950s, which was desperately poor but also simple, beautiful, and deeply spiritual. Erdrich makes this last point when she brings on two Mormon missionaries who are flummoxed to find that Indians were neither as simple nor as easy to convert as they believed, that their beliefs were so tightly interwoven into their identity they could not be separated. The overarching story is about the tribe's fight against termination, but this is a portrait of Indian life to counteract the stereotypes as well as tell the truth about their experiences in relation to the white world and the US government. Sometimes I lost track of who all the side characters were, but I never lost their sense of humanity that Erdrich so deftly endows her characters with. Erdrich's prose is simple but resonant, and her short chapters have a rhythm of stories told round a fire. This book was definitely worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, which it won in 2021.

[dairyqueen84 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I just love Louise Erdrich and the glimpse into Native American life. At first I found it a slog to read but as I became absorbed by the poetry of her language and the characters' lives, I read it slowly to savor it all. I knew this was fictionalized account of her grandfather's fight to stop the American government from terminating all tribes but after I finished and read the Afterward, it all came together for me. I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters but I didn't let that stop my enjoyment of the book.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a treat to have the author read her audiobook! It amazes me that she finds time to do that on top of putting out a book almost every year and running a bookstore in Minneapolis (I haven't visited it yet but I'll bet it's wonderful). She narrated the other audiobook of hers that I have listened to, LaRose, I said then that it gave another layer of enjoyment to the experience and that is also the case this time.Erdrich based the title character on her grandfather. Just like Thomas Wazhashk in this novel her grandfather campaigned to oppose the government's policy to terminate the rights of the Turtle Mountain band in the 1950s. Wazhashk is the Ojibwe word for muskrat and I imagine Erdrich chose this name deliberately since muskrats are mostly nocturnal. The muskrat was also the animal that succeeded in diving to the bottom of the water to bring up some mud that was the start of Turtle Island. There are other characters in this story, the most important of which is Patrice Paranteau. Patrice is the middle daughter in her family and the one who supports them through her job at the jewel bearing plant. She is also the one who seems to have absorbed the traditional teachings from her mother, a gifted healer. Based on her knowledge of traditional healing Patrice would like to be able to go to medical school but is constrained by her need to keep bringing in money for the family. Her older sister, Vera, went to Minneapolis and has disappeared. Patrice and her mother both have dreams of Vera which cause Patrice to take a week off work to go to Minneapolis to find her. While searching for Vera she has some runins with the seedier side of the city and she never does find her sister. However, she does find and bring home Vera's baby. Patrice is very good looking and attracts male attention, some of which is unwanted but she does kind of like Wood Mountain. Wood is an amateur boxer and his bout with a white boxer raises funds for Thomas and others from the reservation to go to Washington to testify before Congress. A ghost from Thomas' past, a young boy who caught tuberculosis at the residential school they attended, also follows Thomas to Washington. The novel is not only an homage to Erdrich's grandfather but also to the traditional way of life. I would love it if Erdrich would follow up this book with another that shows what happens to the characters as time goes on. I grew quite attached to Patrice and I'd like to see more of her.

[burritapal · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is extremely emotional. A politician who was a Mormon, and thought Joseph Smith got advise from an Italian angel that the Mormons were welcome to any land they cared to squat on, even if native-born Indian tribe members had lived there for centuries, decides to write a bill that, if passed, would take away the tiny bit of land left to a tribe in North Dakota, and halt all federal funding to their reservation and peoples. The grandfather of the author bravely takes him on and, raising money among the desperately poor fellow tribe members, goes to Washington DC to testify against the passing of the bill.
Yet one more part of history to make me ashamed of our fellow corrupt, thieving, lying, betraying, racist countrymen.

[debbie13410 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Ugh. interesting to read about living on reservation. bored me.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Audiobook performed by the author Winner of the Pulitzer prize. Erdrich was inspired by the true story of her grandfather, who successfully fought against a US Senator intent on “eliminating” various Indian tribes.The setting for the novel is 1953, on the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota. Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing factory, where many of the women of the Turtle Mountain band of Chippewa are employed. The jewel bearings are used by the Defense Department, and in the manufacture of certain watches. He’s also the tribal elder and very concerned about a proposed bill in Congress to abrogate nation-to-nation treaties, which calls for the termination of five tribes, including his. Thomas is a thinker, deliberate and willing to entertain different ideas, but always following his own conscience. His appearance before Congress was masterful. His niece, Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau is one of the women working at the plant, earning barely enough to support her, her mother and younger brother. She must deal with a number of family issues as well. Her sister left for Minneapolis some time before and has now disappeared, while their alcoholic father occasionally makes an appearance causing havoc for the family. Erdrich uses these two parallel and interconnecting story lines to highlight the life, struggles and triumphs of the Native Americans during this era. Many of their problems stemmed for institutional racism: the efforts of the U.S. government to strip the land from the indigenous peoples, to eradicate their culture by forcing children to attend boarding schools where they were forbidden from using their native languages and frequently mistreated, and the government’s continued paternalistic attitudes that viewed the Native Americans as unintelligent savages, not worthy of help or assistance. I loved these characters, and the many supporting characters in the book. Patrice, in particular, spoke to me. She’s intelligent, straightforward, and principled. She thinks quickly, averting trouble or getting out of sticky situations on her own. She’s cautious about romantic entanglements, as well. Erdrich weaves in elements of Native mythology and folklore, employing magical realism in some scenes. The audiobook is read by the author, and I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job. She really brings these characters to life. Brava.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Louise Erdrich’s usual character-driven powers are in full force here. Told from the points of view of Thomas, a leader of the Turtle Mountain Reservation tribe of Ojibwe people in Montana, and Patrice, a worker in a jewelry bearing plant, the struggles to stay warm and fed are seemingly surmountable until, in 1953, a proposal is made to "terminate" the tribe's treaties with the federal government and to sell off the tribe's land. Thomas knows that the action would mean the destruction and scattering of the tribe to the Twin Cities, and he calls upon every resource to fight and win the case. Patrice is also grieving the disappearance of her elder sister Vera, who took off to the cities to get married and is abandoned and kidnapped. The most charming misfit is Millie, a serious student of anthropology who lives constrained by her autism limitations and boundaries until she is called upon to bring the results of her studies to the hearing in Washington, with Thomas and Patrice. An incredible and often forgotten historical event occurs the day before the hearing, and Thomas becomes ill right afterwards. The story is based on the author's grandfather's honorable life, and the tension of not knowing if he will be successful shadows the lovely portraits of families of the reservation. The novel is filled with beauty, sorrow, and joy, and worthy of the honors earned.

[threadnsong · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an incredibly interesting and heartbreaking book, and one that I had a hard time putting down. The relatively modern (1950's) history of the era of "termination" between the US Government and tribes of Native Americans forms the backdrop of this book, set in the Chippewa reservation and Minneapolis.The Native peoples are doing their best to live on the land that is left to them on their reservations, after the best farmland has been taken by White farmers. There are still skills to hunt, trap, and gather what foods the land provides. In addition, there is a jewel factory that employs mostly women tribal members; their work is to attach jewel slices to watch mechanisms. The title character of the night watchman is based on the author's own grandfather, who is the night watchman at the factory. He is also the main force in gathering together the people and signatures and money for the tribe to plead their case in Washington, DC, to keep their land and avoid termination.In addition to Thomas, the title character, there is Pixie, a worker at the jewel factory who journeys to Minneapolis to try to find her sister, Vera, who has disappeared. Pixie finds the low-life scum who are able to guide her to her sister's baby, and also help her make a few hundred dollars in a dive bar's underwater tank. Wood Mountain is a boxer being trained by Stack Barnes, and both of them are kinda sorta in love with Pixie. And yet, Erdrich makes it all work with her poetic language, her inclusion of Chippewa religion and rituals, and her storytelling gifts that help the tales of these widely different people all resonate for a long, long while.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Historical fiction by Louise Erdrich that is set in 1953 when it was proposed by the Utah Mormon Senator that was influential as a proponent of terminating federal recognition of American Indian tribes, in the belief that they should be assimilated and all treaty rights abrogated. This is the story of Louise's grandfather who worked as a night watchman. It is mostly a work of fiction. I found the story interesting. This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2021.

[sarahebear · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A remarkable book covering a number of fictional stories about the residents of a Native American reservation in North Dakota. The characterisations are beautiful and the interpersonal relationships are sensitively examined. I learnt a lot about the functioning of Reservations and Native American culture. Well worth a look.

[muddyboy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There are two things going on in this wonderful novel. On the one hand we have many small stories of many engaging Native American characters living their lives in upstate Minnesota. The bigger story is that the federal government wants to terminate them as a tribe taking away the rights that they have under previous treaties. They would no longer exist as a tribal entity. Ms. Erdrich based the book on the experiences of her grandfather and his associates in the 1950's. A great novel.

[nmele_4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fully relied characters, several sub-plots and happy endings to both the main plot and the sub-plots. Also, along the way we spend time with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa as they struggle to avoid termination and renewal from their last bit land, in the early 1950s. This is an important read but it is also an entertaining one.

[maryzee_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent and interesting

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One of the less dazzling Pulitzer winners in recent years. That being said, it’s a fine primer on a part of American history that I’d never really been exposed to

[carolfoisset · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

How is it that this is the first Erdrich book that I have read?? (I think that I read other authors and thought it was her.)I have already added many of her books to my TBR list!This is a powerful book in so many ways and beautifully written. I read it for book club and can't wait for our discussion next week.

[maryreinert · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set in North Dakota on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, this is a story of multiple people that live and work there. Patrice, always known as Pixie, is 19 and works at a local factory where her uncle Thomas is the night watchman. Pixie's father is a drunk better off gone than around; she lives with her mother and younger brother. Her sister, Vera, has left for the "cities" (Minneapolis) and has never been heard of again. The story has several lines: Pixie's trip to Minneapolis to find Vera and her experiences with some very unsavory characters which leads to some humorous yet sad times: working as a "waterjack" in a rubber ox suit in a bar. Vera has apparently been caught up in the sex trade.On the reservation, Thomas, the night watchman, as spokesman for the tribe is leading the effort to oppose "Native dispossession" which a US Senator is calling for. This would leave the tribe with no special consideration from the government; they cannot support themselves on their land and if this law passes, all would be lost.Based on the life of the author's grandfather, the story tells how Thomas and some others eventually go to Washington DC to speak to Congress. Pixie goes along as a representative of a worker at the factory.This is not an exciting plot with very little tension; rather it is a protrayal of the people that inhabit the reservation and their daily lives, trials, and joys.This won the Pulitizer - not sure why - It does provide what is probably a pretty accurate look at life on the reservation.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Five years ago I was introduced to the writing of Louise Erdrich by reading The Master Butchers Singing Club. This historical novel of Germans in America won me over and while it has been too long since, I now have returned to Louise Erdrich with her historical novel about the battle of her indigenous people for their rights.In this story we find Thomas Wazhashk, the the night watchman of the title, working at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. Thomas 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. He wonders, 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"? While anyone who has read about the history of the relations between the indigenous tribes and the steady encroachment of American settlers will not be surprised by these events, it is disturbing that they are happening in post WWII America.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. Her very real characters speak simple, but truthful words, all the while fighting a Federal Government whose words are duplicitous. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a moving work of both personal and historical fiction whose story has both sadness and a positive spirit that finds its source in family and community.

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know the title character is based on Erdrich's grandfather, but it is a little misleading because the story, which is very well-written, is about the whole community, not just one person.

[delphimo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Night Watchman written by Louise Erdrich troubles me. The story is a fictional account of friends and family known to Louise Erdrich. The biggest event is the Indian Termination Act of 1953 which hoped to end the union of the Indian tribes and the Federal government and to usurp the Indians from the reservations. On these “reservations” or tribal land in North Dakota, the Indians live in utter poverty with no running water or electricity. Their meals consist of wild animals and fruit and vegetables of the field. Jobs are scarce and pay lowly wages. The main character is Pixie, who wants to be called Patrice. Patrice’s sister, Vera, has married and gone to live in Minneapolis. Vera has not contacted her family in a long time, so Patrice ventures to the city to find her. We learn that Vera has been kidnapped and has been forced to become a sex slave. When Vera is sick and haggard, her jailors throw her out. The descent of the native Indian from proud warriors to individuals fighting to stay on the reservation’s land. The Indian Termination Act of 1953 was passed, but was stopped in the 1960’s. America belonged to the Indians, but the federal government wanted the land, and that struggle continues today.

[maggieflo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The nightwatchmanIt is 1953 and Thomas Washashk a member of the Turtle Mountain Indian band is the night watchman at the jewel plant that supplies material to the US department of Defence. Thomas and his colleagues are Chipewyan living in North Dakota, with Fargo as the closest city. Thomas is a well educated, thoughtful, literate and caring father, husband and mentor. He springs to action when he finds out that the US Congress is going to abrogate the nation to nation treaties that were signed years before and let the Indians stand on their on feet. The local senator Arthur Watkins, a Mormon, is all in favour of “emancipating” the Indians. Ultimately what he really wants is the land they occupy so that white farmers can take over.This story is historical fiction as Thomas is a stand in for the author’s grandfather, Patrick Gourneau who assembled a group that petitioned for the status quo and then travelled to Washington to present their case which they won.The characters are well developed, their individual stories speak of hope, distress, love, the future, their children. Some suffer from abuse, alcoholism, under employment. The story is also occupied with a ghost or two who animate the story with comic relief or dreams and predictions.This is a story of determination, pride, community support, integrity and character of those who cooperated to the success of their fight.

[ibkennedy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love her writing and stories

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A rich, engaging story grounded in both history and Chippewa faith traditions. Even though Thomas is based on Erdrich's grandfather, Patrice may be her finest character yet. I highly recommend this book and certainly believe it will hold up in Erdrich's canon.