By Louise Erdrich
Literary Fiction
March 2020
Harper
ISBN: 978-0062671189
Capturing in words someone important to us, memorializing acts, thoughts and feelings, keeping alive that which inspires us about the past and the present -- all of these ideas are essential parts of why people tell stories. Louise Erdrich demonstrates all of these in her new novel, The Night Watchman. It is both a testament to her grandfather, who inspired the night watchman in the story, and a clear call that what her grandfather fought for is something that needs to be fought for today.
Aunishenaubay Patrick Gorneau, Erdrich's grandfather and chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Advisory Committee during the 1950s, is the inspiration for Thomas Wazhushk. He, too, is a tribal chairman and he, too, works as a night watchman at a jewel bearing plant that has created work for many tribal members. It is a factory where jewel bearings are created for watches, and required close eye work and delicate hands.
In between making his rounds, Thomas writes letters and deconstructs the meaning of a congressional bill to terminate his tribe. It will mean everyone will be removed from their homes, the U.S. government will reclaim the land, there will be no tribal services. The tribe will cease to exist, even though the people will be cast adrift.
In between episodes that recount the battle to take on the federal government, the daily lives of several of Thomas's relatives are chronicled. Whether it's Patrice, formerly known as Pixie, searching in the big city for her lost sister, or the white math teacher and boxing coach who clearly adores her, whether it's Thomas's elderly father Bibbon remembering stories from his youth or Wood Mountain training as a boxer and coming into his own as a man, these stories have depth, breadth and a lot of heart.
Even the characters who have made errors or suffered tragedies are good to know and to have a chance to care about. Thomas's childhood friend, Roderick, who has become a ghost, still has discoveries to make. Patrice's co-workers Valentine and Doris make discoveries about themselves while wondering about how well to get to know boys. In an expansion of why a Mormon senator pushed for tribal termination, two young Mormon missionaries have a lot to learn about what they have been taught, including how they were taught to think of Indians and their religion. The senator in the novel, Arthur V. Watkins, is real and his legacy includes both terminating tribes and standing up to Joseph McCarthy.
Any of these stories could have become a full-length novel by themselves. That they are woven together to tell why the termination battle was, and is, so important makes this book even more heartfelt. Or, as Thomas thinks to himself while spending time with his aged father:
It seemed to Thomas, as they sat in the sinking radiancer, shucking bits of shell from the meats, dropping the nuts into a dishpan, that he should hold on this.
Sharing the little that people have with each other, letting go of grudges, marveling at visitations of owls and other creatures, the joy of observing a leaf or creek or sleeping bear in varying seasons -- these are the heart of The Night Watchman. And sharing these stories shows why the fight against the termination of one's tribe is a fight to retain one's deepest sense of self. It is a fight against those who invaded and took the land, who would force Indians to assimilate and forget everything about themselves. It is a fight against breaking agreements, treaties, that were signed to last "as long as the grass grows and the rivers flow".
It is a fight that continues to this day. Just last month, the Trump administration rescinded the tribal status of the Mashpee Wampanoag people. The tribe planned to build a casino on its reservation land that would compete with casinos with ties to Trump, who famously has fought against tribal casinos since the 1990s.
The layers to the title of the novel show how carefully Erdrich built her book. Thomas watches over his people even as he watches over the factory, which helps manufacture watches and gives his people jobs that they don't have to go to the big city to do. They can stay at home, where their ancestors can watch over them, and where they can watch over the land. Or, as Wood Mountain describes it:
"I feel they're with me, those way-back people. I never talk about it. But they're all around us. I could never leave this place."
Thomas is named Wazhushkag, the muskrat. As Erdrich notes:
Although the wazhushkag were numerous and ordinary, they were also crucial. In the beginning, after the great flood, it was a muskrat who had managed to remake the earth. In that way, as it turned out, Thomas was perfectly named.
The Night Watchman also represents how wise it can be to listen to that inner voice. In an afterward, Erdrich confesses that she couldn't get rolling on any new writing projects and feared she would never write again. "Hours later I was jolted awake by some mysterious flow of information: go back to the beginning." And so she read her grandfather's letters and so we all have this beautiful novel that pays tribute to him, to the way he and his people lived every day and to the way they rose to the occasion when life came at them full speed.
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