The Night Watchman

By: Louise Erdrich

Narrated by: Louise Erdrich

Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

New York Times Best Seller

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, DC, 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.

©2020 Louise Erdrich (P)2020 HarperAudio

Another Triumph for Erdrich

Yet another love letter to the ancestors both brutal and poetic well worth your time

Great story

I loved listening to the author and the story of the Native Americans was heart warming.

I really enjoyed this novel

loved it! beautifully narrated.i wonder if the name of the senator was real. i will have to google "Watkins"i

I really enjoyed it

Amazing

Simpler times and complicated histories make for a beautiful story about a people who continue...I loved this book to no end.

Gorgeous

Louise Erdrich transported me to a place and people I could not help but love, every one of them, as dear as family. I found myself rooting for each of them to find the peace and love they so richly deserved, and gave. Thank you Ms. Erdrich for telling a story so rich and inspiring.

Loved It

Louise Erdrich is an incredible writer. I'm often disappointed in the languaging of highly-recommended books. Not so here. Characters are well developed. Elements of the story are finely woven. Images presented refuse to vacate the mind. Subject matter that could be rendered hopeless and depressing contains elements of spirit and beauty. While reading this in our book club, it received a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Well done.

Beautiful, moving and poetic

I have longed to discover a writer that could excite me like Margaret Atwood, to read (or listen) books that I didn’t want to put down. The Night Watchman drew me in and I fell in love with the characters and looked forward to listening to Louise Erdrich reading to me just like a book I couldn’t put down. Amazing storyteller and makes me want to learn more of this heartbreaking history.

I’m sad it’s over but excited to discover her other writings.

Written with love

I would recommend this book especially on audio which features the author as the narrator.
The story was crafted with love and I did learn a lot about the Turtle Mountain Reservation and their fight to keep their home. I was fascinated by the Mormons’ thoughts on the indigenous of North America as I had not read on that topic in the past. It was dreadful reading about what Patrice and Vera endured both having been exploited in some way. I walked away learning about the experiences of the Chippewa & Erdrich’s gift for storytelling evoked such a empathetic response from this reader. Looking forward to reading more by this author.

Ms Erdrich could write a novel on each character

Ms Erdrich could write a novel on each character in this story. There are so many tales to tell

story kept my interest. narration was fabulous

t'was moving to see the other side of indigenous peoples. I wonder if it has changed