The Night Watchman audiobook

On August 1, 1953, the United States Congress announced 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. My grandfather Patrick Gourneau fought against termination as tribal chairman while working as a night watchman. He hardly slept. - from the Author’s NoteThe resolution was one of a series of like measures that sought to deny Native American tribes the benefits treaties with the U.S. government had conferred, things like the government providing medical care, schools, and food. More importantly, it made the tribes vulnerable to loss of their land, which was usually the purpose of such laws. In the case of the Turtle Mountain Band, it would mean, ultimately, forcing reservation residents to relocate to “the cities,” a place where sustaining traditional life would be impossible and living conditions were often appalling. All while keeping track of the watchman of the title on his nightly rounds at the plant, and in his dealings with his Chippewa community on a diversity of matters, personal and official. Louise Erdrich - image from Citypages Thomas Wazhushk is the fictional representation of Erdrich’s real-life grandfather. We follow his route, from awareness of the proposal, to seeking advice from more knowledgeable tribe members, to organizing resistance, to recruiting expertise, to appearing before the Senate committee that was considering it. Patrice (Pixie) Paranteau is 19. She works at the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant, (a real-world place) where gems and semi-precious stones are drilled for use in military ordnance, and Bulova watches, and which Thomas guards at night. The novel’s focus alternates between Patrice’s coming of age and Thomas’s representation of the tribe. Patrice faces many challenges. As a primary supporter of her family (pop being mostly an out-of-work alcoholic who steals rather than contributes, whenever he deigns to show up), Patrice must hang onto her job at all costs. Not a simple thing, as she is reliant on others for transportation to and from work, and lacking any sort of union protection, she can be let go on a whim. Asking for days off, for example, can be a fraught thing. But family comes first, and Patrice negotiates some time to go looking for her older sister, Vera, who has gone missing in Minneapolis. Vera’s absence certainly rings bells, given the ongoing travesty of Native American women and girls who continue to go missing year after year.She is also well aware of the relationship choices facing her. A white teacher (and boxing coach) is puppy-dog smitten with her, or at least with his idealized image of her. And a local young man, Wood Mountain, finds himself interested as well. Patrice seeks some sex-ed from a good, and experienced, friend before even considering pursuing such interests. She had seen how quickly girls who got married and had children were worn down before the age of twenty. Nothing happened to them but toil. Great things happened to other people. The married girls were lost…That wasn’t going to be her life. Speaking of things sexual, the atmosphere at the plant is challenging for some of the women, but defenses are craftily erected, and major misery is mostly avoided. Unrelated to the plant, Patrice faces an attempted assault, barely escaping. Erdrich offers a look at a very dark side of Minneapolis, where exploitation, the worst of which occurs offstage, is extreme, and very disturbing. The desire to experience the wider world comes in for a look. Patrice wants to see more of life than is possible on the rez, but has limited possibilities. Wood Mountain, on the other hand, feels deeply wedded to the land and would be more than happy to spend the rest of his days there. Sometimes he found small ocean shells while working in the fields. Some were whorled, others were tiny grooved scallops…“Barnes was saying there used to be an ocean here,” he said to Thomas. “From the endless way-back times.”“Think of it. [the] baby will be playing with these little things from the bottom of the sea that was here. Who could have known?”“We are connected to the way-back people, here, in so many ways. Maybe a way-back person touched these shells, Maybe the little creatures in them disintegrated into the dirt. Maybe some tiny piece from that creature is inside us now. We can’t know these things.”…”Sometimes when I‘m out and around,” said Wood Mountain, “I feel like they’re with me, these way-back people. I never talk about it, but they’re all around us. I could never leave this place.” Vera and Patrice’s experience with “the cities” would hardly seem an inducement, but another young native woman, a grad student, who was raised in the city, which was not a horrifying experience, has to study, on-site, the rez, a somewhat alien place to her, to get a fuller appreciation of her own roots. Overall, The Night Watchman offers a portrait of a community struggling to survive despite the onslaughts by forces official, religious and economic. Along the way, Erdrich offers a very deep and powerful look at life on the reservation, how Native Americans relate to each other, (living and dead) and interact with the wider non-native world beyond. The borders, however, are quite permeable. Many native women work at the Jewel Bearing Plant. The white world enters the reservation in person of Lloyd Barnes, a teacher and boxing coach. Two young Mormon missionaries stumble through the landscape as well. They are mostly there for comic relief. Mormonism comes in for a look beyond the two young men, as Thomas studies Mormon teaching as a way to better understand the Senator behind the House resolution, and has a vision that is very resonant with Mormon lore. Erdrich often shows in her books connections between religions, usually between native beliefs and Catholic or Protestant Christianity. This is of a cloth with that.She also devotes considerable attention to dark circumstances in native life. Her characters must often contend with poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, and domestic violence. There is plenty of that to go around here as well. But, while they are significant elements in the stories being told, they are not the focus. Thomas’s battle to save the community and Patrice’s growth toward finding her best road ahead are the lead narrative elements. Erdrich employs a rich palette of magical realism in most of her books, and this one is no exception. The lines between living and not-living are blurry. A member of the tribe allows himself to be occupied by a spirit to facilitate an out-of-body search for a missing person. Thomas sees the spirit of a young man at the plant during his nightly rounds, and sees beings of light descend from on high, as well. A golden beetle emerges from the husk of a nut. Someone has a conversation with a dog. An evil-doer is cursed with a physical deformity. One character is changed after sleeping near a hibernating bear. Where living ends and the spiritual begins, where the past ends and the present and even future emerges are more curtain-like crossings than hard barriers. This is always a wonderful feature in Erdrich’s books.One of my favorite elements of the novel was the transcendental experiences felt by some as they viscerally connect with the world in which they live. In one passage, Patrice is returning home, walking through woods when it begins to rain. Her hair, shoulders, and back grew damp. But moving kept her warm. She slowed to pick her way through places where water was seeping up through the mats of dying grass. Rain tapping through the brilliant leaves the only sound. She stopped. The sense of something there, with her, all around her, swirling and seething with energy. How intimately the trees seized the earth. How exquisitely she was included. Patrice closed her eyes and felt a tug. Her spirit poured into the air like song. In another, She could hear the humming rush of the tree drinking from the earth. She closed her eyes, went through the bark like water, and was sucked up off the bud tips into a cloud. We learn what happens with the Resolution, decisions are made about paths forward, characters find themselves, so there is much satisfaction to be had in the wrap up. And along the way we have picked up a payload of learning about native culture, about the relationship of the tribes to the government, a nugget or two about Mormonism, and been led on this journey by warm, relatable characters who are very easy to care about, through a landscape both harsh and ecstatic, to see realities pedestrian, brutal, and magical. What more could any reader want?Review posted – February 14, 2020Publication date----------March 3, 2020 (hardcover)----------March 23, 2021 (trade paperback)June 11, 2021 - The Night Watchman wins the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Well deserved.=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal and FB pages. Erdrich's personal site redirects to the site Birchbark Books. She owns the store.This is Erdrich’s sixteenth novel, among many other works. She has won the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, among many other recognitions. Her familiarity with cultural mixing is personal, her mother being an Ojibwe tribal leader and her father being a German-American. Familiarity with both native spirituality and western religion also stems from her upbringing. She was raised Catholic.Other Louise Erdrich novels I have reviewed-----2017 - Future Home of the Living God-----2021 - The Sentence-----2017 - Future Home of the Living God-----2016 - LaRose -----2010 - Shadow Tag-----2012 - The Round House -----2008 - The Plague of Doves -----2005 - The Painted DrumItems of Interest-----Yump - ”In the Old Language”: A Glossary of Ojibwe Words, Phrases, and Sentences in Louise Erdrich’s Novels - by Peter G. Beidler-----Ojibwe People’s Dictionary-----Wiki on Lamanites-----Timeline.com - Upset with mistreatment, Puerto Rican radicals stormed the Capitol and started shooting in 1954-----NY Times – December 25, 2019 - In Indian Country, a Crisis of Missing Women. And a New One When They’re Found. - By Jack Healy-----Emily Dickinson’s Success is counted sweetest - Patrice quotes from thisSongs-----El Negro Zumbon-----Bill Haley and the Comets - Crazy, Man, Crazy-----Slim Whitman - My Heart is Broken in Three

Congratulations to Louise Erdrich, 2021 Pulitzer Prize Winner! ****************************************I loved everything about this book - the writing, the characters, the story, the importance of it and that Louise Erdrich pays a wonderful tribute to her grandfather who inspired this story. It’s a beautifully written and depicts a strong sense of community, of family, and of the hard life on the Chippewa Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. It’s filled with characters that are easy to love, to admire, to root for as they fight for their identity, their land, not to be “terminated”, as they struggle with managing their daily existence. Thomas Wazhushk, is a guard, the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, but it is his role as representative and defender of the tribe against the Termination Act of 1953 that is front and center. Patrice, his niece, is a smart and strong young woman. With an alcoholic father and a missing sister, she works at the factory to provide for her mother and her brother and it’s heartening to see her come of age as the novel progresses. Wood Mountain, a young boxer was born to be a father. Roderick is a ghost who stole my heart. Bibon, Thomas’ father is a wise man who even in his old age provided guidance to his son. With these and other characters, there are a number of story threads that Erdrich skillfully connects. There is even a pair of Mormon missionaries who provide Thomas with the Book of Mormon which helps him better understand Arthur Watkins, the Utah senator leading the charge in Washington and who according to Wikipedia was “influential as a proponent of terminating federal recognition is American Indian tribes”. One of the young missionaries gives us a very funny scene which provides a moment of humor much needed among the seriousness of what the tribe faces. Through Thomas, we get a sense of what an amazing man her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, must have been and she shares some of who he was in an afterword. This is piece of history, set in the not too distant past in the 1950’s. One that we would hope was over, yet I was not surprised that the current administration (in 2019) has brought the idea of termination of a Native American tribe forward again. Appalling. This is the third novel I have read by Erdrich, and she’s a prolific author so I’m very glad to have more to read.I read this with my book buds Diane and Esil and it’s one that we all loved.I received an advanced copy of this from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

"But every so often the government remembered about Indians. And when they did, they always tried to solve Indians." The Night Watchman is a novel about a senator who tried to “emancipate” Native American tribes in the 1950s and one of the men who led the fight against this so-called emancipation: “Emancipated. But they were not enslaved. Freed from being Indians was the idea.” It’s also about the people who live on Turtle Mountain Reservation, tracing their paths in life as emancipation looms. While this is about the history of the fight against emancipating the Indians, it's also about sexuality, gender, class, identity, love, “otherness,” and life on the margins. Chapters alternate between Thomas, a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant and tribal leader; and Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau, a 19-year-old girl who also works at the plant. Other characters’ POV’s are woven in, but Thomas and Patrice serve as the primary voices. Erdrich’s characterization is exceptional. It was easy to visualize the characters and hear their voices as I was reading. Thomas is a compelling character, and while I loved his chapters, it was Patrice’s voice and character who got under my skin. Patrice is extremely intelligent, strong, eager to grow, but at the same time, stuck, somewhat comfortably, in her life on the reservation. Happy with her current job, she longs for more in life. She carries the financial burdens of her family and acts as a protector to her mother, sister, and brother. She presents a tough exterior, but she is quite fragile. She knows the ins and outs of the reservation, but so little about the world. I finished this book some time ago and I am still thinking about her character. I love Erdrich’s writing and her command over the language. She plays with the meaning of words, subverts norms, and makes her points subtly and quietly. She weaves in bits of humor to lighten the tone. I learned so much from reading this. Erdrich's author’s note at the end taught me even more. The fact that the current administration is trying to emancipate tribes doesn’t surprise me. It makes me nauseous and angry to think about. However, Erdrich's final sentences leave me feeling hopeful. The Night Watchman is a powerful read filled with heart and soul. It serves as a loving tribute to Erdrich’s grandfather who fought for Native American Rights. The characters, their journeys, and the message of this book moved me and will stay with me for time to come. I highly recommend!I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Huge Congratulations to Louise Erdrich…. This book is the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2021! Library overdrive ebook I loved everything about this novel....... The storytelling (highlighting a family’s strength and resilience), is exceptional!!!!... The inspiration for this book is moving. (the authors grandfather) ... The characters (primary and supporting), are wonderfully developed ... The history is fascinating and important ... The writing is beautiful If you absolutely love Louise Erdrich, like I do, you’ll enjoy this book too! Thumbs UP 👍🏻 👍🏻 5 stars!!Blessings ( again and again)... to everyone during these unsettling times. 🌍 🇺🇸 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇨🇳 🇫🇷 🇨🇦 🇲🇽🇮🇷 🌍 etc etc etc.

Based on the life of her grandfather, The Night Watchman tells the story of Thomas Wazhashk who was not only a Night Watchman but a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the new "emancipation" bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. The bill threatens the rights of Native Americans by abandoning treaties made in good faith.Patrice "Pixie Paranteau" was class Valedictorian and wants more out of life than a husband and kids. She is barely making enough money to get by and sets out in search of her sister, Vera who is rumored to have a baby. She sets out towards Minnesota to find her sister and baby, but what else will she find along the way?The Night Watchman was slow to start for me as I got acquainted with the many characters and their subplots. Her various characters play both major and minor roles in the story which shows many of the characters using the strength of determination, courage, ingenuity, kindness, generosity, and love. We also see how they deal with adversity with wit, strength, intelligence, and determination. I always learn something when I read a book, Erdrich. Not only do I learn customs and traditions, I learn history and laws.Although the book started slowly for me, it did pick up in the second half as everything came together. I always feel as if her books are labors of love for her as she writes about her ancestors and her community.

4.5 strong stars. I started listening to The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich right before the pandemic shut down my school. Since I as so many others were confined to my house I had to give up listening to this incredible book at that time. As soon as my library reopened I once again borrowed this audio CD and was delighted in how much I liked it. The audio CD was narrated and read by the author, Louise Erdrich herself. It was a real treat to hear her tell this story. She is most certainly a master storyteller. The story was based on the life of her grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, who among other things, was the night watchman of the plant that produced jewel artifacts in North Dakota in the early 1950’s. Louise Erdrich renamed her grandfather, Thomas Wazhashk, for the purposes of this book. Thomas was also the chairman of the Chippewa Turtle Mountain people. When he learned that Congress was trying reclaim the land owned by, lived on and given to the Chippewa American Indians in a non expiring treaty, he made it his mission to fight to retain their lawful land. The American government was trying to relocate these Native Americans to the cities where they would for all intents and purposes be eliminated. Thomas fought back by writing letters to congress and soliciting help from whoever he could. This fight led Thomas and his small committee all the way to Washington, D.C. All the characters in The Night Watchman were so well developed. I particularly liked Pixie or Patrice as she liked to be called. She was a smart young woman who cherished the members of her family. Pixie worked at the jewel bearing plant and the money she earned supported herself, her mother and brother. Her family was quite poor but their love and devotion for each other made up for what they did not have in processions. Her older sister, Vera, had been missing for months. Pixie was determined to find Vera in Minneapolis where she had last been seen. When Pixie found herself immersed around questionable people with compromised morals and practices she knew she had to save herself and her sister’s baby by leaving Minneapolis. She had to leave her sister behind for the time being anyway and return home.I really enjoyed listening to The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. That time in the history of the Native Americans living in North Dakota was unknown to me. I find it so enriching and interesting when an aspect of a family’s heritage can be shared so that the events and outcomes are not lost. I was totally absorbed in this story and was sad when it ended. All the characters were rich and well developed, even the secondary ones. I highly recommend this book.

prior to reading this book, i was familiar with the red power movement that occurred in the US during the 60s and 70s, where native american youth fought for the right to self-determination. but i had never heard of the house concurrent resolution bill 108, which called fro the eventual termination of all tribes back in 1953.so im grateful to have learned more about his untaught moment in US history and i appreciate LE narrating a story around the experiences of her grandfather during that time. the struggles of thomas feel authentic and, even though this is a work of fiction, it feels like a firsthand account. i think this does a great job at depicting the importance of community and family, as well as the fight for identity and freedom. my only complaint would be the heavy focus on side characters who arent necessarily that important, which kind of deterred the main focus of the story at times.but overall, i really enjoyed reading and learning about a moment in history that i was unfamiliar with!↠ 4 stars

Now Winner of the Pulitzer Prize 2021Erdrich has written a captivating pageturner about the golden 1950's in the US - an era that was only golden if you were white, of course. While the black population suffered under Jim Crow, there were also widespread government efforts to terminate treaties with Native American tribes, which would have resulted in them losing their rights and status. The goal: Assimilation instead of self-determination. Erdrich's grandfather Patrick Gourneau, Chairperson of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians during that time, was the inspiration for the title-giving "Night Watchman": Together with his community, he was the first one to successfully fight Congress over the planned termination, and the tribe has secured its status and land in North Dakota until today (you can learn more about Indian termination policies between 1940 and 1960 here, and more about the specific case of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa here). The novel's protagonist, Thomas Wazhushk, works as a night watchman in a juwel bearing plant near the reservation, and that's not the only valuable unit he protects: As Chairperson, he fights for the interests of the Chippewa at Turtle Mountain. When the news of the intended termination reaches the community, they start to develop a game plan and prepare to travel to Washington to personally make their case. In the second, closely related narrative strand, Thomas' young niece Patrice "Pixie" Parenteau, who works at the plant, travels to Minneapolis in order to find her sister Vera who disappeared in the city. Aided by her friend Wood Mountain, an aspiring boxer, she discovers what might have happened. This novel shines through its fantastic, complex characters and the way the relationships between them are shown (not told): Pixie has an alcoholic father and a mother who is deeply knowledgeable about Chippewa culture, as well as a gang of female friends; there's Thomas' friend Louis and his a half-white daughter Millie who attends the University of Minnesota and uses her scientific knowledge to help the tribe; there's Juggie Blue, Wood Mountain's widowed mother, and his white boxing coach and high school teacher Barnes who falls for Pixie; there's Thomas' childhood friend Roderick, now a ghost; and many other members of the community. In Minneapolis, we meet outrageous criminals and discover whole new job opportunities feat. bodysuits with hoofs (cringe!), and throughout the text, we repeatedly run into two rather comical Mormon itinerant preachers (the serious background being that a Mormon congressman who wanted to terminate the Chippewa argued based on his religious beliefs). Erdrich also does a wonderful job reflecting Chippewa beliefs and cultural practices just by showing them as part of her characters' approach to the world and as everyday actions. She portrays the hard life on an impoverished reservation, the difficult, multi-layered connections to the settler state, but also the resilience, intelligence and humor of the people living at Turtle Mountain - this author gives her characters dignity and humanity. Erdrich also did quite a bit of research, and it shows: Not only did her grandfather really write a lot of letters during that time, they were also preserved so she could read them; Vera's story was fueled by The Prostitution and Trafficking of American Indian/Alaska Native Women in Minnesota; meetings Erdrich describes rely on actual transcripts; and the study presented before the congressional committee was actually conducted - even the shooting incident she depicts really happened. While not exactly daring in composition, this book offers a highly immersive reading exprience, and the narrative and the characters are intruguing - I couldn't put this novel down. Important to know: Trump has recently brought back the termination era, targeting the Wampanoag, the tribe that invented thanksgiving. So books like Erdrich's are not only a real treat for everybody who loves a well-told, captivating story, but they help to preserve history and to raise awareness about what's going on in the world right now.You can learn more about the German translation Der Nachtwächter in our latest podcast episode.

Two years ago, Louise Erdrich thought she would never write again. The National Book Award-winning author of “The Round House” and more than a dozen other treasured novels had abandoned several manuscripts and given up. She was certain her “impetus had disintegrated.”Fortunately for us, she was wrong.One day, she woke from her depressed slumber impelled to read a cache of letters written in the middle of the 20th century by her grandfather Patrick Gourneau. He had been chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee during the tribe’s modern-day fight for survival. The threat at that time was legal but as potentially disastrous as earlier assaults: In 1953, the U.S. House passed a resolution declaring that a number of tribes should be rapidly “freed from Federal supervision.”Ah, blessed freedom!Beneath that glorious promise of emancipation lurked the government’s true plan: the unilateral abrogation of treaties, the wholesale termination of tribes’ rights and the abandonment of Native Americans already impoverished by centuries of genocidal policies.Reminded of that dark era and her grandfather's heroic role in saving the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota, Erdrich knew she had found the inspiration for her next book.Erdrich’s career has been an act of resistance against racism — the hateful and the sentimental varieties — and the implacable force of white America’s ignorance. In one powerful book after another, she has carved Indians’ lives, histories and stories back into our national literature, a canon once determined to wipe them away.“The Night Watchman” is more overtly political — it even includes a trip to Washington, D.C. — but it’s a political novel reconceived as only Erdrich could. Although the legislative history and the congressional battles of Indian termination rumble over the horizon, the story stays focused on folks living on the Turtle Mountain reservation. For most of them, the immediate concerns of. . . . To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

Erdrich weaves a story within stories. The Nightwatchman, Thomas, is a Chippewa Indian who leads his people in fighting against the U.S government from taking away their land and relocating them to the city. Pixie, who searches for her sister who was part of a ‘relocation’ program is missing. What happens when the officials say a better life can be had but really isn’t the case.The Indian culture is rich with imagery and the symbiotic relationship with animals and nature. The visions and dreams of animal spirits.What happens when a culture is stripped then forced into assimilation.Erdrich has a talent for creating memorable characters - Pixie, Wood Mountain, Thomas. And the challenges and struggles they face to hold onto family, culture and land. 4.5⭐️This was a buddy read with Rich :)

An enthusiastic 4 stars!The Night Watchman is my first Louise Erdrich novel, but it won’t be my last. For me, this was historical fiction at its best. The novel is partially based on Erdrich’s grandfather, who worked as a night watchman in a jewel factory and who led the fight against “dispossession

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zdrs..."Der Nachtwächter" ist ein komplexes, aber interessantes Buch, das einen eindrucksvollen Einblick in den Kampf gegen die Terminationspolitik dem Leser bietet.488 Seiten, die eine Geschichte im Jahr 1953 aus der Sicht mehrerer Personen erzählen. Ich persönlich hatte am Anfang Schwierigkeiten in das Geschehene einzutauchen. Inhaltlich geht es unter anderem um Louise Erdrich's Großvater Thomas Wazhashk, der tagsüber Stammesratsvorsitzender des Reservates des Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota ist und nachts als Nachtwächter in einem Betrieb arbeitet. Aufgrund eines Entschlusses kämpft Thomas gegen die Enteignung und schreibt Briefe an die Regierung.Als Leser erfährt man Rituale und (Aber-) Glauben und lernt so die amerikanischen Ureinwohner aus einer neuen Perspektive kennen, was ich persönlich mochte.Wer ein anspruchsvolles Buch mit dem Schwerpunkt Ureinwohner Amerikas sucht, wird hier definitiv seine Lesefreude haben. Dieses Buch wurde mit dem Pulitzer-Preis 2021 ausgezeichnet.