eBook, 464 pages
English language
Published Feb. 25, 2020 by HarperCollins Canada, Limited.
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 …
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.
Reading this book felt like a master class in how to write a novel.
This historical novel by Louise Erdich is a gem. I liked the characters, the plot, and I liked the fact that I learned something, too! This is one of the few times I actually read the acknowledgements.
Highly recommended.
If you watch journalists at Trump rallies ask people there when America was great, the usual answer was the years after World War II, from around 1947 to 1962. [a:Louise Erdrich|9388|Louise Erdrich|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1462224430p2/9388.jpg]'s [b:The Night Watchman|43721059|The Night Watchman|Louise Erdrich|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560803752l/43721059.SY75.jpg|68041398], which takes place in 1953 and 1954 and is about Chippewa Indians in South Dakota, tells an important part of the reality of that era, when Jim Crow ruled the South and, less well known and the book's topic, over one hundred American Indian tribes were terminated by the federal government and 1.4 million acres of tribal land was lost.
It's a good, interesting, and important novel, which I'd have liked better if it weren't for the common practice of having so many micro-chapters of less than three pages. I know those are perfect for most people these days because they can check their phones without feeling that they've lapsed …
If you watch journalists at Trump rallies ask people there when America was great, the usual answer was the years after World War II, from around 1947 to 1962. [a:Louise Erdrich|9388|Louise Erdrich|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1462224430p2/9388.jpg]'s [b:The Night Watchman|43721059|The Night Watchman|Louise Erdrich|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1560803752l/43721059.SY75.jpg|68041398], which takes place in 1953 and 1954 and is about Chippewa Indians in South Dakota, tells an important part of the reality of that era, when Jim Crow ruled the South and, less well known and the book's topic, over one hundred American Indian tribes were terminated by the federal government and 1.4 million acres of tribal land was lost.
It's a good, interesting, and important novel, which I'd have liked better if it weren't for the common practice of having so many micro-chapters of less than three pages. I know those are perfect for most people these days because they can check their phones without feeling that they've lapsed in concentration, but that's not me. I like chapters that suck you in and make you feel like you're really a part of what's going on.
I know what you're saying. "Put your teeth back in, shut up, and keep reading boring old books, geezer." Got it.
The leaves gold on green, bright in the soaking rain, padded the trails in the woods. All of the Wazhashks were hard at work. In the sloughs the little namesakes stockpiled green twigs. In the fields, the family pitchforked up the last of the carrots. Piles of squash, warty green, orange, mellow tan, solid little pumpkins, filled the cellar and were piled around the sides of the house. Braids of onions. Pale meek balls of cabbage. Crates of cream and purple turnips. Bushels of potatoes. Thomas hauled wagon loads. Wade and Martin argued themselves into the back, arranged themselves around the vegetables. Still arguing, they unloaded produce at the cafe, at the school, and at last the teachers' dining hall. Juggie Blue gave orders, telling them where to stack and pile. Tomorrow, there was going to be a parade, a community feed, a football game, and the crowning of royalty. Sharlo was in the Homecoming court.
