Book Review Night Watchman

Although the stakes for the residents of turtle mountain will be apocalyptic if their tribe is terminated the novel is more an affectionate sketchbook of the personalities living at turtle mountain than a tightly plotted arc that moves from initial desperation to political triumph.

Book review night watchman. The washington independent review of books the night watchman is indeed historical thoroughly researched rich with cultural and topical detail. 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 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.

However what engages the reader most deeply are erdrich s characters. 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. The author s narrative voice has been compared to steinbeck.

Louise erdrich s the night watchman a rich novel of native american family community. Still the night watchman has little interest in exploiting that suspense. The washington independent review of books the night watchman is indeed historical thoroughly researched rich with cultural and topical detail.

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. The night watchman is both richly rooted in the sensuous world and also full of dreams visions and visitations. As the author writes in an afterword.

However what engages the reader most deeply are erdrich s characters. The author s narrative voice has been compared to steinbeck. People ghosts even animals.

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.