Book Review Night Watchman

The author s narrative voice has been compared to steinbeck.

Book review night watchman. Louise erdrich s new novel the night watchman centers on an attempt by the federal government to terminate native american. The washington independent review of books the night watchman is indeed historical thoroughly researched rich with cultural and topical detail. Louise erdrich s the night watchman a rich novel of native american family community.

The novel is at its best when erdrich steps back from narrating history or depicting torture and instead portrays the turtle mountain community in all its charming dailiness. People ghosts even animals. The night watchman is a novel about a senator who tried to emancipate native american tribes in the 1950s and one of the men who led the fight against this so called emancipation.

The washington independent review of books the night watchman is indeed historical thoroughly researched rich with cultural and topical detail. This narrator s vision is more capacious reaching out across a whole community in tender conversation with itself. Freed from being indians was the idea.

But they were not enslaved. The night watchman is both richly rooted in the sensuous world and also full of dreams visions and visitations. People ghosts even animals.

However what engages the reader most deeply are erdrich s characters. The night watchman arrives in the midst of an impassioned debate over how american citizenship should be defined. Louise erdrich s new novel the night watchman harper 448 pp out of four shimmers and dances like the northern lights the book s cover evokes.

In powerfully spare and elegant prose the author depicts deeply relatable characters who might be. A history embodied and every bit of it endangered by termination. If you should ever doubt that a series of dry words in a government document can shatter spirits and demolish lives let this book erase that doubt.