Once more, the National Book Award-winning author finds the magic in the ordinary.
This time, it’s pretty personal, too.
What moved you to finally turn his story into fiction?
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich CR: HarperCollins.Credit: Hilary Abe; HarperCollins
LOUISE ERDRICH:That’s an interesting question, and I haven’t really answered it for myself.
One of my daughters agrees with you!
She actually made an alternate cover just calledPixie.
And I really had to put Pixie in there.
The line popped up: “She did things perfectly when enraged.”
Her anger directed her into this cold efficiency, and I liked that about her.
There’s another quote inWatchmanwhere a character says, “They always attempt to solve Indians.
They solve us by getting rid of us.”
Obviously the rhetoric around Native lives, or at least the lip service, has improved dramatically.
But do you feel like the intent has truly evolved since your grandfather’s time?
The anguish of missing and murdered indigenous women, this is happening at all times.
Where do you fall on all that?
Ah, how to parse this out!
Or it is for me, at least.
But it’s also important, I think, to take it book by book in each situation.
I mean it’s ubiquitous, it’s always happened.
I question myself too, and I feel like I really make a run at dig down.
I’m not a great historical researcher, but I’ve learned to try.
My books have gotten more and more embedded in experience and research.
Your work sometimes leans into the supernatural but stops short of full-on magical realism.
Is there a line that you draw?
It’s all within the realm of what I feel is possible.
Because science is basically, when you get down to the details, magical.
And I don’t know why we receive and send signals that are beyond our ability to know.
Was that an intentional swerve for you?
It also seemed like the ending might be open to a sequel.
I utterly enjoyed writing that book!
But I didn’t really see it as dystopian.
It really spoke to me, and it still does.
And the end was left somewhat ambiguous because I thought I might want to keep going.
You’ve been so prolific for more than four decades.
I’ll probably just fade away somehow [laughs].
No, I don’t know!
I don’t want to make a better book every time, I’m not like that.
But you might’t count on that.
That sounds a little bleak[laughs].
But I love writing so I’ll keep doing it, as long as I have books and characters.
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