The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich is an amazing author and a long time favorite of mine, This new novel won the Pulitzer prize for fiction this very year, a prize she also won 2009. She is a member of the Anishinaabe nation.
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/louise-erdrich
The Night Watchman is a complete and perfect novel, the characters will stay with me like old friends for a long long time, and the story itself is of great historical importance.
The novel is about House Concurrent Resolution 108, a bill to abrogate nation-to-nation treaties, which had been made with American Indian Nations for “as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow.” The announcement called for the eventual termination of five tribes, including the Turtle Mountain Band of Chipewa.
Thomas Wazhashk, the Night Watchman at the newly established jewellery plant right near the Turtle Mountain resevation in North Dakota, is also the Tribal Chairman of the Chippewa and on his long nights he is trying to make sense of the new "emancipation bill" which is sold in as a bill of freedom, but nothing the white man has done has amde any sense or been about freedom. He soon learns that the bill will make their lives and existance vanish, breaking the old treaties and stealing all Native land they fought so hard for. It is 1953 and the USA is extremely racist.
The character Thomas is based on Erdrich's own grandfather.
Another main character, is Pixie, excuse me Patrice Paranteau, is the niece of Thomas, and a remarkable young woman, supporting her whole family with the ay from her job at the jewellery plant. Her father is a dangerous and violent drunk, and the latent fear of him showing up makes he mom, who is a traditional woman of many great skills, sleep with a knife under her pillow. Her younger brother is a wrestling team member and a way for the wrestling coach Stack Barnes, to get close to his big crush; Pixie.
Patrice's older sister Vera has vanished to the cities and the family is greatly worried about her and her baby. When Patrice makes up her mind to go find her and travels to Minneapolis, the story turns strangely dark.
There are many more characters in the story, like Wood Mountain, the sleeping bear, Valentine, and the quirky Millie, who is a college girl with a special way to see the world... and of course the ghost of Thomas's childhood friend who didn't make it out of the violence and torture of Indian boarding school alive.
Us white people call it magical realism, but form my Native friends I've come to learn it's just a different way to walk thorgh the world; a way where the world's aren't seperate but magic threads hold us all together.
This is easily one of the top five books I've ever read. Just amazing.
https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/louise-erdrich
The Night Watchman is a complete and perfect novel, the characters will stay with me like old friends for a long long time, and the story itself is of great historical importance.
The novel is about House Concurrent Resolution 108, a bill to abrogate nation-to-nation treaties, which had been made with American Indian Nations for “as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow.” The announcement called for the eventual termination of five tribes, including the Turtle Mountain Band of Chipewa.
Thomas Wazhashk, the Night Watchman at the newly established jewellery plant right near the Turtle Mountain resevation in North Dakota, is also the Tribal Chairman of the Chippewa and on his long nights he is trying to make sense of the new "emancipation bill" which is sold in as a bill of freedom, but nothing the white man has done has amde any sense or been about freedom. He soon learns that the bill will make their lives and existance vanish, breaking the old treaties and stealing all Native land they fought so hard for. It is 1953 and the USA is extremely racist.
The character Thomas is based on Erdrich's own grandfather.
Another main character, is Pixie, excuse me Patrice Paranteau, is the niece of Thomas, and a remarkable young woman, supporting her whole family with the ay from her job at the jewellery plant. Her father is a dangerous and violent drunk, and the latent fear of him showing up makes he mom, who is a traditional woman of many great skills, sleep with a knife under her pillow. Her younger brother is a wrestling team member and a way for the wrestling coach Stack Barnes, to get close to his big crush; Pixie.
Patrice's older sister Vera has vanished to the cities and the family is greatly worried about her and her baby. When Patrice makes up her mind to go find her and travels to Minneapolis, the story turns strangely dark.
There are many more characters in the story, like Wood Mountain, the sleeping bear, Valentine, and the quirky Millie, who is a college girl with a special way to see the world... and of course the ghost of Thomas's childhood friend who didn't make it out of the violence and torture of Indian boarding school alive.
Us white people call it magical realism, but form my Native friends I've come to learn it's just a different way to walk thorgh the world; a way where the world's aren't seperate but magic threads hold us all together.
This is easily one of the top five books I've ever read. Just amazing.
