The Night Watchman
by Louise Erdrich
2019 / 464 pages
read by author 13h 32m
rating – 9 historical fiction
(both read and listened)
I love the writing of Louise Erdrich but there have been a couple books which, because she reads them herself, don’t quite cut it. So I tried listening at 1.25 speed and that cleared that up.
Like many of her books this is historical fiction dealing with the Turtle Mountain Reservation in north central North Dakota in 1953 and thereabouts There is one thread which takes the reader to Washington DC and Arthur Watkins who originated a bill to “emancipate” the Natives from their reservations – their land.
It’s a beautiful fictionalizaton of the story of Patrick Gourneau, Erdrich’s grandfather who organized to fight that bill. And won.
But it’s more than that. Erdrich puts Gourneau into her signature setting on the Turtle Mountain Reservation as it was in those days with all the family problems including love and death and drunkeness and leaving for the city. Great characters!
Becky's Books - 