Inspired by Erdrich’s grandfather and the voluminous letters he sent to politicians in Washington in an effort to save his tribe from termination, the character of Thomas emerges as a complex, brilliant, troubled leader who spends his nights in the factory composing endless entreaties to those in power while he struggles to stay awake. The novel follows the fates and struggles and adventures of these two people and the ever-expanding circles of their relations. Thomas watches over the dark, possibly haunted factory to protect these gems from thieves. Among these working women is Thomas’s niece, Patrice, known against her will as Pixie. The novel’s title character, Thomas Wazhashk, is a night watchman for a factory where women of the Turtle Mountain clan work by day, using gemstones as drill bits for Defense Department ordnance and for Bulova watches. For 450 pages, we are grateful to be allowed into this world. High drama, low comedy, ghost stories, mystical visions, family and tribal lore - wed to a surprising outbreak of enthusiasm for boxing matches - mix with political fervor and a terrifying undercurrent of predation and violence against women. The author of “Love Medicine,” “Tracks” and “The Round House,” among her 22 books for adults, she delivers a magisterial epic that brings her power of witness to every page. Erdrich retakes the lead by offering the reader the gifts of love and richness that only a deeply connected writer can provide.

In this season of literary wildfires, when cultural borrowings have unleashed protests that have shaken the publishing industry, the issue of authenticity is paramount. Even that might sound like distant history - but part of Erdrich’s point is that little has changed: As she reminds us in an afterword, the Trump administration has recently tried to terminate the Wampanoag, “the tribe who first welcomed Pilgrims to these shores and invented Thanksgiving.” This isn’t in 1893 the novel takes place in the 1950s. Early in this banquet of a novel that invites us back into Louise Erdrich’s ongoing Chippewa chronicles, a character on the reservation boasts, “Law can’t take my Indian out of me.” Unfortunately, the United States government is hoping to do just that through the Termination Bill, an Orwellian plan that promises to “emancipate” Indigenous people from their lands and their tribal affiliations.

The night watchman book review