Louise Erdrich's novel The Night Watchman is not just close to her heart because she wrote it; it tells the story of her Native American ancestors who, in the early 1950s, fought against a congressional bill that, in an Orwellian turn of phrase, would "emancipate" Indians from their Indian-ness by ending all federal services and relocating them from their lands. Erdrich's grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was a first-generation Turtle Mountain Reservation Chippewa Indian and was born on the reservation in North Dakota; he spearheaded the organized fight against what became known as the termination bill, promoted by Utah Senator and Mormon Arthur V. Watkins who was attempting to renege on agreements that had already been made with the Chippewa.
Patrick is Erdrich's inspiration for her novel's protagonist, Thomas Wazhushk, the eponymous night watchman. Thomas, whose name comes from the Chippewa word for "muskrat," was so named because of his hardworking ethic, and the novel manages to show the inter-relation between Native American traditions and their fight to retain both their rights and identity in the face of government action. The novel's episodic and interwoven structure not only memorializes Thomas, but a whole community of people living and resisting in the face of great hardship.
Erdrich is one of the foremost Native American writers and author of some 17 books. She is French Obijwe from her mother and German American from her father. She is a member of the federally recognized tribe of Turtle Mountain Chippewa Indians and is acclaimed as one of the foremost members of the second wave of Native American Renaissance. Her novels are well-known for featuring multiple narrators and recurring characters and places. The Plague of Doves, a novel about the South Dakota Indians that Erdrich published in 2009, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction that same year; her 2012 novel, The Round House, was the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.
