Louise Erdrich’s 17th novel The Nightwatchman: Saving Community won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for many reasons–among them its historical perspective, truthfulness and understanding about the strengths and weaknesses of human beings, wry humor, and relevance to our untapped desire for and satisfaction in the experience of community. Because it treats many common societal difficulties, it repays discussion by a group of readers with different backgrounds and life experiences. But it is also a moving story of a threat to Native cultures in the 1950s from legislators who hoped to dissolve the treaties that had established Native rights to certain lands in perpetuity. The “night watchman” is a prescient metaphor for maintaining the integrity of our promises to future generations.

Students will need to purchase the book, The Nightwatchman: Saving Community either in print or online. Estella will contact students prior to class.

Estella Lauter included fiction by Louise Erdrich in her courses in both Women’s Studies and American Indian Studies at UW-Green Bay, where she was a Professor of Humanistic Studies and a founder of both programs. She remains an enthusiastic reader of Erdrich’s fiction, memoirs and poetry in the contexts of both American literature and Native American history–particularly that of the cultures surrounding the Great Lakes, including Erdrich’s Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Chippewa) heritage. For many years, she taught “Literature By and About Women” in The Clearing’s winter program, focusing on a different country each year. In retirement, she turned to poetry and published her fifth book of poems, On the Brink, in 2025.

Levels: All Levels