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It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom Congress is fed up with Indians. 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. Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. WASHINGTON POST, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF THE YEARīased 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, D.C., 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. She was so inspired by this David-and-Goliath story that she has made it the plot of her 17th novel, “The Night Watchman.WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION

Erdrich, Gourneau had effectively “challenged the juggernaut” of the federal push to sever its pacts with Native Americans.

Although the government ended up terminating 113 tribal nations and reclaiming 1.4 million acres of tribal land, the Turtle Mountain Chippewa were mostly left alone.Īccording to Ms. Gourneau had a full-time job as a night watchman at a local factory but still sent countless letters to political representatives, held innumerable meetings, deployed lots of strategic flattery and led a Chippewa delegation to Washington. A federal bill called for terminating recognition of all tribes, and for the immediate relocation of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa. Amid the postwar housing boom, promised tribal land was under threat.

Louise Erdrich’s grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was the tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota in the 1950s, a golden age for the country but a dark time for Native Americans.