The Night Watchman
Erdrich's Pulitzer Prize novel about a night watchman who fights a 1950s bill to end tribal recognition.
Louise Erdrich based this novel on her grandfather Patrick Gourneau, who worked as a night watchman and resisted termination policies on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. Thomas Wazhashk guards a jewel bearing plant and sits on the tribal council, while his niece Patrice goes to Minneapolis to find her sister. Alongside the politics the story holds family tragedy, boxing matches and romance. It won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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