She Treads Softly: Nightjar

Friday, June 12, 2026

Nightjar

Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich
7/7/26; 272 pages
Random House

Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich is a very highly recommended collection of five short stories which explores grief, relationships, intuition, and doubt in the ordinary lives of people living in the Pacific Northwest.

All of these stories are exquisitely well-written and explore the intimate, inner thoughts and reflections of ordinary people. Grief and secrets are a major theme connecting the stories, but they also explore memory, interpersonal relationships, natural intuition, personal observations, troubling events, instinctive knowledge, and the hidden internal thoughts of the main characters. The setting also becomes an essential part of each story. This is really an excellent collection.

The stories included are:
Victor's Room: explores a relationship and marriage as a woman questions her husband's account of his family's history and how his deception impacts their current lives. This is the longest of the stories, more a novella, and is a strong, compelling start to the collection.
Owl: a fur trapper considers his marriage after his wife is accidentally shot by four boys. This story is a winner of an O. Henry Award.
Round Lake: a young woman plans to meet a boyfriend in Tokyo but learning an unexpected fact about her deceased mother's death shakes her world. This was the weakest story for me.
Petty Creek Road: Will is grieving the sudden death of his brother Butch and his son Cal moves in with him. Will is hoping to regain his natural ability to locate people in danger.

Nightjar: Tess, 12-years-old, discovers she can skim the reflection off the top of a water pail and place them on a boulder to save them. These reflections become increasingly important to her as she appreciates their mysterious beauty. This is a strong final story to the collection.

Nightjar is a wonderful choice for those who enjoy exceptionally well composed short story collections. Thanks to Random House for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.