Both novels this month speak to the deep and resounding courage that we all have living within ourselves. From fighting for their people and their rights to fighting for her
Louise Erdrich is well-known for her many books, including
Love Medicine, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award-winning book. This and later works focus on the theme of justice and the ways in which Native Americans struggle to obtain it. She has always written about the Native American community she learned about in her childhood, and her early works document those lives of Native Americans. But with her latest work,
The Night Watchman, she has based the character of protagonist Thomas Wazhashk on an actual member of her family.
In her new novel,
The Night Watchman, Louise Erdirch’s protagonist, Thomas, keeps watch in a factory while he also tends to the affairs of the Turtle Mountain Band of the Chippewa people as their tribal chair. This character is based on Erdrich’s maternal grandfather. In the 1950s, he held that overnight job while also having to tussle with the U.S. senator who was trying to terminate the tribe, moving the members off the land that was res