My Pulitzer-a-month project continues with The Night Watchman, a book that I ended up appreciating more than I actually enjoyed it. It does character really well, and presents a whole ensemble that you care about individually but mostly as a collective, which is fitting; although there are two standouts to focus on, this is really the story of a community trying to survive. And I think that Erdrich was smart to preserve this story as historical fiction because in doing so she secured a wider audience for it. But there are elements of the storytelling that just did not work with my inclinations, especially the way narrative threads fizzled out without satisfying conclusion. Yes, that's how things often work in real life, but I think that in writing fiction we recognize a certain level of inherent artifice. And for me, part of the artifice that appeals is narrative structure. I'm fine with an ambiguous ending if it works, but I do actually need an ending that feels like an ending.

I also found the winking horse vulva incredibly distracting, but when I asked a coworker who loved this book if that passage also stood out to her, she didn't remember it at all. So, YHVMMV (your horse vulva mileage may vary).