Genre: Book
Grade: A-
Notable People: Louise Erdrich
Title: The Night Watchman
Review: The veteran author hits pay dirt with this luminous novel based on the experiences of her Chippewa grandfather. The year is 1953 and a lunatic senator has decided to dispossess the Chippewa Indians from their adopted homeland in North Dakota. The book is a beautifully written treatise on the modern Native experience. Erdrich has configured wonderful truth- based fictional world populated with an endless array of compelling characters. We find a hodgepodge of personal stories and complex relationships set in the cultural context of the Chippewa- and explores themes of love and death with both lightness and gravity. It also asks the very specific question of how the American government consistently can abandon treaties with the Native American population, made in good faith, “for as long as the grasses shall grow and the rivers shall run”. Good question.