The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Erdrich, Louise. The Night Watchman. New York, Harper, 2020. HC.

In 1953, House Concurrent Resolution 108 proposes to end treaties between American Indian Nations and the U.S. government. The novel is loosely based on the author’s grandfather, who fought against the “termination” of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the Turtle Mountain Jewel Bearing Plant, as well as the tribal chairman. He spends his nights between rounds writing letters to contacts and officials for information about the proposed bill. A ghost watches him write. Thomas lives with his wife, Rose, her mother, Noko, and his younger children. His father, Biboon, lives nearby.

Patrice “Pixie” Paranteau is the fastest worker at the plant. Her wages support her family, including her violent and drunken father, who comes by looking for money. Patrice aspires to something bigger, but for now she just gets by. Patrice supports her mother, Zhaanat, who holds the stories and ceremonies of their people, as well as her younger brother, Pokey. Her older sister, Vera, has gone missing in Minneapolis. Zhaanat’s cousin Gerald performs a ceremony to look for Vera, and he sees her very sick and curled up with a baby. Patrice vows to find her.

Lloyd Barnes is the white boxing coach and math teacher. He has his eye on the exotic Pixie, but she pays him no attention. His best boxing student is Wood Mountain, son of the government compound cook, Juggie Blue. Wood Mountain nearly wins his fight against the local white champion, Joe “Wobble” Wobleszynski, but the white timekeeper cheats to let Joe win.

Patrice takes the train to Minneapolis; Wood Mountain worries about her naïveté and asks for the addresses she will search, just in case. In Minneapolis, Patrice gets into a fake taxi that instead takes her to a bar called Log Jam 26. A man named Jack Malloy offers to help her search for Vera, but if she does not find her sister she must dance as the “waterjack” entertainment at the bar. He drives Patrice to her addresses, but the first is boarded up and the second has no clues.

On the reservation, Thomas convenes the advisory committee: himself, Moses Montrose, Juggie, Louise Pipestone, and Joyce Asiginak. They decide to start a petition against termination and attend a government meeting in Fargo, but the meeting has no power to stop termination. They will have to testify before Congress. Two Mormon missionaries arrive to convert the band, but Thomas instead asks them for information about the bill’s champion, a powerful Mormon Senator named Arthur V. Watkins. Meanwhile, Wood Mountain decides to check on Patrice.

Patrice performs as the waterjack. The next day, she returns to the first address and finds a dying dog chained inside. There are many empty chains and collars. Later, Patrice realizes these held people, possibly including Vera. She and Wood Mountain retrieve Vera’s baby and go home. Wood Mountain falls in love with the baby and names him Archille after his own father, and Barnes is jealous of Wood Mountain’s apparent relationship with Patrice. Thomas is horrified by Patrice’s news until he locks himself out on a freezing night and the star people visit, giving him peace and hope.

Thomas and Barnes plan a charity boxing event between Wood Mountain and Joe Wobble to raise money for a trip to testify in Washington. The boxers beat each other to a pulp, but the fundraiser is successful. Thomas contacts Millie Cloud, Louis Pipestone’s daughter, to present her master’s thesis about the reservation as part of their testimony.

Far away, Vera goes into withdrawal when her drugs are withheld. The men who have used her captive body dump her in an alley in Duluth. She walks west, convinced she has died. When she collapses by the highway, a retired army medic takes her in and nurses her body and her psychological trauma.

Patrice’s drunken father freezes in a snowstorm, freeing the family of his threats of violence. On the third night of the funeral vigil, Patrice confronts his ghost. Wood Mountain makes a cradle board for the baby, which is usually done by the father.

Patrice asks her coworker, Betty, for information about sex in case she wants to try it. She selects Wood Mountain for her experiment in the hope he will not expect more afterward. However, he declares his love, which frightens her. Patrice knows men can react badly when rejected; the summer before, Bucky Duvalle tried to rape her, and she only escaped by swimming into the lake. Luckily, Thomas’s boat turned out to be nearby. Patrice’s hatred flew to Bucky like a bird and gave him the stroke that disfigured his face. However, after Patrice narrowly avoids blindness from an eye infection, she and Wood Mountain make love in the snow.

Thomas, Juggie, Moses, Millie, and Patrice travel to Washington, where they witness a violent protest and confront the city. During their testimony, Roderick speaks in Thomas’s ear, counselling him to stay calm in the face of Watkins’s racist questions. On the way home, Thomas collapses on the platform in Minneapolis. He is hospitalized with a stroke, but slowly recovers. Roderick stays in Washington with the Indian ghosts of past centuries.

Back in Turtle Mountain, Vera returns, to Wood Mountain’s shock. He continues to visit the baby, and he and Vera overcome their jealousy and develop an attachment. When Patrice gets home, she recognizes they belong together and releases Wood Mountain of any obligation.

Thomas has trouble remembering words sometimes, but otherwise returns to his jobs as night watchman and tribal chairman. The book ends with a note that the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa was not terminated. The author’s grandfather recovered from his stroke and worked tirelessly on behalf of the reservation.

The Afterword and Acknowledgments discuss the source material, including the letters of the author’s grandfather, and the lessons to be drawn from this story.