Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize, Amazon’s Best Book of 2020, a New York Times bestseller, prose comparable to John Steinbeck’s great novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”
At the heart of the book is the true story of the life and struggle of Louise Erdrich’s grandfather.
1953. Thomas, whose prototype was the author’s grandfather, works as a night watchman at a factory manufacturing gemstone bearings—the first plant located near the Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota. As a member of the Chippewa Council, he tries to prevent the consequences of a new bill on “emancipation,” which Congress of the United States is about to pass. Thomas knows that if the law is adopted, the tribe will cease to exist—and he does everything he can to stop it.
“In The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich rediscovers her genius… This tapestry of stories is the calling card of the author’s literary craft. Like her characters, we discover that people ‘laugh with that desperate, high laughter people laugh with when their hearts are broken.’”
Ron Charles, Washington Post