Nightjar: Stories

by Emily Ruskovich

From the award-winning author of the national bestseller Idaho comes a stunning collection of stories that explore how unexpected intuitions forever alter the lives of ordinary people.

Five years after moving into the isolated house in rural Oregon where her husband lived as a child, the protagonist of “Victor’s Room” begins to doubt her husband’s account of his family’s past. In “Round Lake,” a young woman’s plans to meet a lover in Tokyo are upended when she learns a startling truth about her mother’s death. In “Owl,” winner of an O. Henry Award, a fur trapper reckons with the dreadful origins of his marriage after his wife is brutally injured by four adolescent boys. 

Haunting and psychologically provocative, and set against the vivid backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, Nightjar illuminates the secret, instinctive knowledge that lies just under the surface of our awareness.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Novels, Ebooks, Audiobook

272 pages, Hardcover

Published July 7, 2026

About the author

Emily Ruskovich grew up in the mountains of northern Idaho. She graduated from the University of Montana and received an MA in English from the University of New Brunswick and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She was the 2011–2012 James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope, One Story, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. She was a 2015 winner of the O. Henry Award for her story “Owl.”

Reviews

[Michael Burke]

Conjuring Reality

Emily Ruskovich’s “Nightjar” is a haunting, atmospheric collection that skillfully probes the instability of memory, grief, and the secrets hidden within intimate relationships. Set against the distinct, often isolating backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, these five novellas explore the psychological undercurrents of ordinary lives.

The collection opens with “Victor’s Room,” which stands out as the most captivating entry. The narrative centers on Rebecca, who slowly uncovers inconsistencies in her husband’s past, watching her trust in their shared reality melt away as she begins to see through his underlying psychosis. This initial piece perfectly sets the tone for the collection’s focus on the complexities of interpersonal trust.

While the O. Henry Award-winning “Owl” has received critical acclaim, I found it the least successful of the group; its exploration of a fur trapper reckoning with his marriage felt less resonant to me than the surrounding pieces. In contrast, the middle of the collection offers complex, unconventional narrative paths. “Round Lake” is particularly disorienting, taking puzzling turns before ultimately revealing how deeply grief can distort and alter a person's memories. Similarly, “Petty Creek Road” generates intense suspense regarding a pivotal event, only to finish with a subtle, muted whisper that echoes long after the words are read.

The title story, “Nightjar,” requires patience; the narrative is slow to develop, but it rewards that wait by finishing strong, effectively grounding the collection in a meditation on how we perceive wonder and magic in relation to truth.

Ultimately, “Nightjar” offers a compelling exploration of the deceptions we embrace—whether born from the trust we place in others or the alternative realities we conjure to survive existence. Even though the pacing falters at times, Ruskovich excels at capturing the quiet, often unarticulated emotional landscapes of her characters.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Nightjar #NetGalley

[Carmel Hanes]

"She has come to tell him that her mother wasn't tragic. That he misunderstood what she meant that day on the phone. That her mother's heart, broken so many times by so many things undeserving of those breaks, let more of the world in through its many cracks than would have been possible otherwise."

I devoured this unique collection of short stories, as I did Ruskovich's previous novel, IDAHO.

What captivates me so much with her writing? Her powers of observation, from the inner world of the human psyche to the outer world that we bumble through, with all the fine details that give you a macro view of what could easily pass unnoticed, and the prose with which she captures nuance. Whether I'm trying to understand a character or envision the beauty in rural spaces, I feel I'm being led, fingers pointing, hushed whispers directing my eyes, gentle touches prying at my heart, directing me towards "awe". She brings the hidden and distorted into view, smoothing it, magnifying it, lovingly dissecting the secrets, loneliness, miscommunications, suspicions, and scars.

One must often read between the lines in a Ruskovich story, and fill in the gaps for yourself, because she brings you to the water but does not force you to drink. There is a mystical quality to this collection, as there was in IDAHO, and one that left me feeling I'd touched something undefined, yet essential, even sacred at times. The title Nightjar reflects this aspect, according to Google: a symbol of mystery, intuition, and a bridging of realms; trust your inner voice, see clearly during life's darkest and most uncertain moments, and navigate the shadows of the unconscious.

Some favorite quotes and an example of the prose and observations that astound and tickle me:

"The ghost of Victor has vanished from the room but in its place is the ghost of a ghost. A presence of an absence, a space emptied of what was once a meaningful emptiness."

"Things were connected to each other by the car she drove in; that's all geography was, rivers and lakes that appeared out her windows between spells of boredom or sleep or back seat games."

4.5 rounded up. I would describe these as small stories told in a big way. Not much happens on the outside, it's almost all internal processing. Clearly won't be for everyone's taste.

[Susan]

I enjoyed reading Ruskovich’s novel, Idaho, in 2018, so was excited to see she had a story collection set for publication. I was even more excited when I discovered this collection is made up of only 5 longer stories. I love a meaty short story.

These stories are mostly set in the Pacific Northwest, and nature or the wilderness plays a role in all of them. They contain a mix of the historical, realistic, and fantastical. Running throughout is a sense of wonder about the natural world, which I loved. Many characters are struggling with primary relationships, whether with a spouse or a child/parent, and finding communication difficult. Some characters are confused but trying to rely on intuition to puzzle out their lives. There isn’t a dud in this collection, just five strong stories with memorable characters that will stick with you.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for allowing me to read an ARC of this title.

[Sam]

My Selling Pitch:
A short story collection that’s all character studies and grief commentary.

Pre-reading:
I love a short story collection. I really do.

(obviously potential spoilers from here on)
Thick of it:
For Sam? For me?
——-
Victor’s

He’s an ass.

He’s a fucking narcissist.

So this freak 100% made up a scholarship to learn personal information about her. (Yup.)

Oh, fuck this man.

Isn’t it more likely that it is his house but he’s lied about his childhood stories? (No, he’s that batshit.)

This is eerie. It reminds me of Foe a bit or My Husband.

That was good. Very melancholy, a little Gothic. Very men ain’t shit. I think it could’ve been blown up into a longer story, but it functions just fine as a short story. It has the correct amount of detail to satisfy. A 3.5 I would maybe round up to a 4.
—————
Owl

I feel like wringing out a rag of blood is an odd analogy for a man. That’s very feminine.

I don’t like this one very much. It’s just kind of like life is shit for women and men are upset that the women don’t want them. 2/5
————-
Round

Oh, I like this bit about grief A LOT. Very do you like him or do you like yourself and he’ll hold up a mirror.

I’m always so confused by drowning and people who can’t swim, and I guess it’s because I grew up swimming and have no memory of not being able to, but it just seems so instinctive to me. Like you float.

I feel really bad for both these characters. Like Nick didn’t deserve that, but girlypop is going through it!

This is really sad.

God, writers are obsessed with petrichor.

I don’t think they’ll last without some massive therapy, but I’d like to read it anyway. I don’t think you can come back from disgust. Once you’re disgusted by your partner, you lose respect for them, and it’s kinda the kiss of death.

5/5 really, really upsetting, but then still manages to end hopeful.
————-
Singing

Oh interesting. The title for this one changed from the arc to the final.

God, so much of this is about grief.

Of course, he drives a Subaru.

I know his dad’s anger is misplaced because of grief, but his son is such a shit that it’s hard to come around on him even knowing that he’s struggling. 3/5
————
Nightjar

Alright, titular story. Let’s hope it’s the best.

Title drop

I don’t get this story at all. I’m bored by it.

I don’t get what this one was about other than being sad about coming of age and leaving childhood wonder behind, but like it wasn’t good. 1/5

Post-reading:
For the most part, this was capable but bland. Round Lake is the standout. That one was very, very good and could've been expanded into a novel, but still had enough of a character arc and detail to satisfy as a short story. The last and titular story was my least favorite. It's always annoying to me when a collection leaves off on a bad note because the recency effect definitely sours my overall perception of the book.

It's an atmospheric collection with a very gloomy tone. The author can clearly write, but all that descriptive prowess gets wasted on some pretty unlikable characters. There’s a historical, Dust Bowl Gothicness to this despite it taking place in Idaho. This might be my East Coast showing, but rural farmland Americana is hard for me to differentiate. They’re poor, they go to church, they abuse their fams. It all kinda reads the same to me. You might get more mileage if you’re more familiar with the area.

I would pick this up to read Round Lake-that one was gutting, but I don’t think you’re missing out on anything special in the others. I would try the author again if she put out a full length novel and I heard positive things about it, but I don’t think I would seek her out. She’s not totally my style. I like my books with a little more zip.

Who should read this:
Grief commentary fans
Family drama fans
Atmosphere as character fans

Ideal reading time:
Summer

Do I want to reread this:
I would reread Round Lake, but not the whole collection.

Would I buy this:
I wouldn't turn down a copy, but I wouldn't go out and buy one either. I think you're safe to grab this title from your library if it interests you.

Similar books:
* Betty by Tiffany McDaniel-lit fic, historical, family drama, revenge thriller
* My Husband by Maud Ventura-lit fic, psychological, domestic thriller, unreliable narrator
* Foe by Iain Reid-lit fic, sci-fi, unreliable narrator
* Tom’s Crossing by Mark Z. Danielewski-lit fic, historical, western
* Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt-lit fic, historical, magical realism, family drama
* You’re an Animal by Jardine Libaire-lit fic, historical, ensemble cast, character study, cults
* The Seaplane on Final Approach by Rebecca Rukeyser-lit fic, character study, atmospheric

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[nicky]

5 / 5 stars

Blown away. Possibly one of my favourite reads of 2026. If it always takes Ruskovich 10-ish years to release a book, please keep going, the wait was worth it.

I read Idaho back in 2018 and it stuck with me for all these years. I still remember the setting, the atmosphere, the undercurrent of darkness threatening to spill over.

I believe Nightjar is a simply wonderful collection of stories (and I detest short stories normally). Every word had its place and its purpose, nothing felt redundant ad everything was tinged with the unsettling while also emanating a peaceful state of just being. There was cruelty, mystery, quiet and alongside so much beauty and reverence and nature it truly took my breath away.

My favourite stories were Victor’s Room and the titular Nightjar but I found each one of them compellingly captivating.

Truly a joy.

[Clair]

This short story collection has done what no short story collection has ever done: made me wish that these were all (well, mostly all) novels in their own right. Victor's Room will stay with me for a long time. It was perfect. I loved it. The stories progressed though in gradually less powerful ways, the weakest for me was the finale, the titular Nightjar. All stories dealt with themes of grief and were fairly heavy, but absolutely memorable.

I received an e-arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Phyllis]

As good as short story collections ever get for me.

[John Dennis]

Don’t love leaving a 2-star review and maybe it was just a skill issue on my part, but I just didn’t get any of these stories

[Andrea]

With the same haunting emotions that Idaho evoked, each of these short stories bring you into their world completely. Each story is completely different, but what they have in common is the experience of being in the rural place that is being written of, whether it be Washington, Montana, or Idaho. Each story will mesmerize you and break your heart.
Beautifully written, each story the perfect length. I loved each story.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC!

[Joshua Glasgow]

In late 2021, I discovered Emily Ruskovich’s debut IDAHO in what I describe in my review as “the old-fashioned way”, which is to say that I just happened upon it while browsing the shelves at the library. As it turns out, I loved it. I gave it 5 stars, marveling at the “world of thought and emotion, of real humanity” within its pages and, more than anything, marveling at Ruskovich’s extraordinary way with language. The writing was so crisp and deliberate and poetic that even those who gave it a lower rating on Goodreads were forced to admit her talent with words. Incidentally, the strength of her writing is likely partly the result of being a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop—since reading IDAHO, I have made a point of specifically seeking out books by other graduates of this program and they are more often than not of high quality (with some exceptions).

Though I was disappointed to learn that IDAHO was Ruskovich’s only book, I knew she was a writer I wanted to keep an eye on. I’ve continued to think back fondly on the book as one of my favorites, and I have occasionally searched Ruskovich again hoping that she’d release a new book. Eventually, it happened: I learned that she was releasing this book, NIGHTJAR, and I immediately pre-ordered it. Six months later, I finally received it, read it, and now here we are.

I was a bit disheartened to learn that NIGHTJAR is a short story collection. I don’t know why I feel this way, as I have read and enjoyed many short story collections, but my instinct is to feel that short stories are not as substantive as a full-length novel. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this feeling, but I acknowledge it’s irrational. I guess maybe the feeling comes from the fact that it seems inevitably with short stories one finds oneself weighing them against each another. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a short story collection which was perfect from start to finish; it’s very easy to fall into the trap of identifying your favorites and then viewing the others as comparatively weaker. Whereas with a full-length novel, you generally tend to rate the book as a whole. Whether because of this semi-unconscious prejudice against short stories or otherwise, I did feel that there were stronger and lesser entries here. The ones which were strong were very strong. The ones which weren’t as strong, well… I kind of give them a pass because of my fondness for the author.

One question I had entering this collection is whether my long-standing veneration for Ruskovich is justified. I haven’t re-read IDAHO since 2021—was it possible I have built her writing up too much in my mind in the years since? I would say no. There were moments reading this that I was transported back to when I read IDAHO… moments where I was absolutely wowed by the author’s precise language and keen observations on human nature. The writing put me in mind of my other favorite authors, Curtis Sittenfeld and George Saunders, both of whom cast the same spell over me through their way with words and how bracingly real their characters’ thoughts and actions come across. Not all of NIGHTJAR is at that peak, unfortunately, but when it hits, it hits . Thankfully, one of the stories that hits is the first: “Victor’s Room”.

The story, in brief, is about a woman who reluctantly agreed to move into her husband’s rural childhood home, a place where his brother died in childhood, but who has grown suspicious that her husband never really lived there to begin with. Partly what drives her suspicions is that her husband had lied to her before: he was one of her college professors and had alerted her to an essay contest for a scholarship, which he encouraged her to enter and which she won… but he later admitted that there was no contest and that he made it up so she would allow him to pay her tuition. He admits this at the same time he first tells her he loves her:

His first declaration of love had been bound together with a lie. He had robbed her of the joy she would have otherwise felt at hearing the words of love that she’d been longing to hear. His feelings for her were nothing now, compared to the disappointment she felt about the scholarship. For several wonderful months, she had believed that she had out-written all the English majors, that she, a freshman in education and religious studies, had swept in from nowhere to outperform people in their own discipline, and with an essay she wrote in high school, no less. It had changed her, knowing this. She had enjoyed her feelings of excellence, of superiority. Not only that, but every day, her going to school was a tribute to her mother because it was her mother’s death that had given her the essay, and the essay had given her these golden days in Walla Wall. Her father had been so proud.

God, for me, the ache in that is so sharp. Even though the scholarship was a lie, the essay is honestly incredible. It is about her mother’s death in a motorcycle crash, which her father claims to have known would happen beforehand. “He told me that he had premonitions about my death, too. Not every morning, but most mornings, when I leave for school, he has a feeling that I won’t return. He thinks, ‘She will die this time. You will lose her. Don’t let her go.’ But he lets me go. Every single time he lets me die. Because he wants to let me live.” Wow… shivers.

This is definitely a SPOILER, but her fears are not unfounded: he truly was lying about having lived in this house, which she discovers when she locates the house he actually lived in—a much more modest, unattractive place. Rather than confront him, though, she encourages him to tell her more and more about the house, giving him so many coils of rope from which to hang himself. “[H]ow strange it was that letting him lie to her like this felt like she was the one lying to him. Every lie he told they told together now, only he was made smaller by those lies and she more powerful.” That power that she feels is described eloquently as well:

Every easy answer she drew from his lips had the effect of watering down his childhood. The dog’s death—move it from the highway to a dirt road, see it from your brother’s room instead of your own, and this does not seem like such a travesty, does not seem to make any difference at all; the dog dies either way. And yet, that dirt road, shimmering with dust, and the window one story higher than the real window, now hovered between Grand and the highway of his memory. It had to confuse his mind. It had to. Again and again she made him say the words, transport the truth to the place it didn’t belong until there existed a ghost childhood that hovered like a veil between him and his own past. A veil she was casting.
It might have been a cruel thing to do, and yet she proceeded with this very intention, to steal form him the truth of his life.
How far will we go down this path together? When will the questions prove too intimate to answer with a lie?
She would take away that which was most precious to him. She would decide his past as he had once, long ago, decided her future.

Damn! That is brutal. I love it. This story, it rocks. It is, I think, probably the best of the bunch and I’m glad that it was the one that comes right out the gate. The second story is titled “Owl” and is apparently the one for which Ruskovich won the O. Henry Award for short stories. As an aside, I discovered while searching for the author in connection with this book that IDAHO won the Dublin Literary award with a prize of €100,000 (approximately $115,000) after being nominated by a single library in Bruges, Belgium. Neat! Anyway, “Owl”, despite being award-winning, kind of struck me as the least of the five here. The overarching story is about a man in the mid- to late-1800s whose wife was shot by a group of teens who mistook her for an owl. The man dotes on his injured wife and wrestles with his rage at the kid culprits. The story ends with the main character discovering that his wife has run off to reunite with a former lover. I didn’t take down many quotes from this story and didn’t find its statements on life or the wrap-up of its plot as compelling as I did “Victor’s Room”. Nevertheless, there is at least one really haunting excerpt worth sharing:

The floors of my mother’s house were made of dirt. My father had found the place abandoned, an old shack on a space of over-farmed soil. The more we beat it down with our feet, the finer the dirt became. The dust rose with every step, with every gust, with every turn in the night of our bodies in our beds. It settled in our sheets, on our clothes, in our hair, and finally in my mother’s lungs, where it lingered for years before it turned into the infection that turned her, with a bit of time, into dust herself. Sometimes I think, A bit of lumber could have saved her. A few boards. Well. Phrases come from somewhere and “dirt-poor” came from a life like ours, one you couldn’t afford to put a board over.

Nice. The third story, “Round Lake”, is another oof-er, if you know what I mean. A young woman named Jade has a long-distance relationship with a boy she dated a few times before he moved away to Japan. The description of her pleasure in the relationship is delicious. It’s less him as a person than “the time zone of him. The halo of night around his words, his drowsy happiness . . . She loved to be pulled in both directions, she loved to say goodbye and get up and know that while he slept she would be awake, alive, vivid with her own details crawling over her wide-awake face . . . How powerful it was to be conscious.” Just before taking a trip to visit her boyfriend, Jade takes an impromptu dip in the titular “Round Lake” and acquires an ear infection. When she tells her uncle where she had been swimming, he’s aghast—it’s the lake where her mother drowned (so many dead and dying relatives in this book!). Jade remembers the day in vivid detail but because she was a child at the time she had been shielded from what occurred; her memory of the day is entirely happy. Moreover, she had misremembered her mother drowning in a river hundreds of miles away simply because she had had a bad experience there once. The shifting of her remembrance of her happy day at the lake is heartbreaking.

But also, she had cause to tell the misremembered story of her mother’s death each time she started dating a new boy, and the fact that she was telling her mother’s story incorrectly adds new poignancy to those retellings because, through retelling the story of losing her mother, Jade felt closer to her mom:

Jade was used to this, to new boyfriends asking questions about her mother. It was natural to want to know. It was important to her, too, to get the facts all said--I was seven. The St. Joe River. Yes, my mom and I were close. At some point she realized that the only time she ever talked about her mom was when she was entering into a new relationship with someone . . . But with every new boy—she still called them boys, “men” was too ridiculous for what they were—there was a sudden re-emergence of memories, a new reason to say my mother and to feel anew that her mother’s death was a part of who Jade was. Different boys prompted different memories with their questions. So it happened that getting to know a boy was also like getting to know her mother again, recalling things she’d had no reason to think about in a long time. The beginning of a relationship was always the best part, and mainly for this reason. She liked the way the boys brought her mother back. Having drowned once, her mother now returned to her in waves. Those waves were the early days of romance. Hello, Mom, she said into the faces of these curious boys.

This sentiment is beautiful and bittersweet and I am all about this kind of writing, I tell you what. And that’s what the story is about, you know? There’s no plot, not really. It’s about this woman’s internal wrestling with the loss of her mother. It’s gorgeous, haunting writing. Yes, I love it.

The fourth story, “I Heard You Singing”, is another standout. This story follows Will, a man who lived with his brother Butch by default until his brother suddenly passed away. It is only after the man died that Will realizes how much he loved and depended upon him. The narrative speaks about the plants in the home withering without Butch’s care as Will was hardly aware of them: “Houseplants needed to be seen in order to be watered. Butch’s plants dried up, died a few weeks after Butch did. Will only saw them in the end because they were ugly, withered and brown. He threw them out. Not until they were dead had they ever been once green and not until Butch was gone did Love assume the name for what had prevailed quite stupidly in that house for twenty-three years.” In the brother’s absence, Will’s adult son Cal moves back in with him, but the two don’t really get along well. Without Butch as third wheel, they don’t know how to relate to one another: “Butch was the necessary string between their two sad tin cans.” Later, the two attempt to memorialize their lost relative but the attempt is awkward and uncomfortable; it lacks the gravitas they both desired and, as a result, stirred up anger in both of them:

They returned to the truck, defeated, elated in their defeat for what it accomplished for them both – a flaring up of old grudges and fat despair inside their hearts. They blamed each other silently. Will blamed Cal for the idea; Cal, Will for indulging it; both of them the other for not being the one dead. In the truck, the air felt to Will bruised and heavy, as if they each had spoken words they would never be able to take back.
Though in truth not a single word was spoken. Though in truth Will had no idea what Cal was thinking and for all he knew Cal might have found the experience cathartic. They drove in silence most of the way and spoke only politely if they spoke at all.

Again… I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but those words have such power for me, such beauty and raw emotion. I’m awestruck by them. I loved this story. As it progresses, Will keeps having a sensation that somebody is calling for help. As a child, he had felt this sensation and ran to find Butch in the horses’ stable, within inches of being trampled. He feels he has a supernatural ability in this way and follows his instinct when he gets this feeling, calling out in wooded areas to ask if anybody needs help. Though there is nobody there, he feels confident one day there will be. The story ends with him calling out in this way, then being startled by a person behind him. It’s his son Cal. “I thought you know that I was here,” Cal says. Wow, what a gut punch of an ending.

The final and title story “Nightjar” unfortunately didn’t do as much for me. I did not save any quotes from this one. It’s about a middle schooler, Tess, who discovers a thin film in her goats’ water bucket which is a captured reflection of the sky above. She places it on a boulder and it adheres to the stone. Each day thereafter, she finds another one and another, and each day she retrieves and places it on the stone such that before long it is completely covered with images—not images, really, but actual views into the sky above the bucket “trapped” in these circles on the stone. When space runs out, she begins layering them on top of one another. That is, she begins to see different points in time overlaid upon one another, different views of the world combining and creating new images. Partly, the point of this story is similar to the others: it’s about loss, though in this case about the loss of aging. The most meaningful moment, for me, comes toward the end of the story, where Tess has been dutifully collecting the reflections for more than a year but is now beginning to look more toward friends, boys—changing interests now that she’s older. She panics, worried that her commitment to this strange phenomenon will keep her trapped at her extremely rural home forever. That she’ll never be able to leave, to go to college, to have a life of her own. She therefore destroys the next reflection, but not before asking her younger brother to take a long look at her face—to remember her as she is on that day. I can tell this ought to read as an especially meaningful moment, and I did appreciate it to a degree, but I don’t think it affected me as much as it was going for.

NIGHTJAR, the collection as a whole I mean, does serve to justify my longstanding assertion that Ruskovich is one of my favorite authors. She can write the most incredible stuff. Though not all of the stories affected me in the same way, those that did made me absolutely relish this read. I am so eager for whatever she produces next. I’m sure it’s going to be stellar.

[Autumn Santos]

initially gave this 4 stars as i felt that “nightjar” fizzled the collection, however, am amending my rating as “victor’s room” has continuously been on my mind in the ~month since i finished it. a resounding masterpiece of a short story.

[Dhanya]

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Nightjar is a thoughtfully written short story collection that explores themes of secrecy, emotional distance, and hidden truths. The writing is polished and reflective, with a strong opening—“Victor’s Room” stands out for its emotional depth and character focus. While many stories are engaging, some feel less defined, and a few endings do not fully live up to their promising beginnings. Overall, this is a solid collection with clear strengths, though greater emotional intensity in certain stories could have elevated the experience.

[Steven]

Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich was an enjoyable collection of short stories and a great introduction to her writing. Like almost every short story collection I've read, some of the stories worked better for me than others, but overall, I found this to be a strong and thought-provoking collection.

One of the things I appreciated most about Ruskovich's storytelling is her willingness to leave things unresolved. These aren't stories that necessarily wrap everything up neatly and hand the reader a clear explanation of what happened or what comes next. Instead, many of them end with questions still lingering, leaving you to sit with the characters and situations long after you've finished reading.

Personally, I really enjoy that kind of open-ended storytelling. When a story doesn't tie everything up in a perfect bow, I find myself thinking about it more afterward. I'm left wondering what might happen next, imagining where the characters' lives could go from there, and sometimes even reconsidering what I thought I understood about the story itself. Ruskovich seems very comfortable trusting the reader to fill in some of those blanks, and I appreciated that.

For me, "Round Lake" was easily the standout story of the collection. It was the one that resonated with me the most and stayed in my mind after I finished it. On the other end of the spectrum, the titular story, "Nightjar," was probably my least favorite. That's the nature of short story collections, though. Different stories are going to connect with different readers, and even the ones that didn't entirely work for me still showcased Ruskovich's distinctive writing style.

Throughout the collection, I was impressed by the atmosphere she creates and the way she draws you into the lives of her characters, often without giving you the entire picture. There's a quietness to many of these stories that I found compelling, with much of their impact coming from what is left unsaid as much as what is actually on the page.

[Lauren M]

I love long short stories, those ones that are nearly novellas, stories that you can really get engrossed in but still finish in one sitting. So Nightjar, featuring five stories spread across about 250 pages, is my ideal format. And the stories are just gorgeous. I’d never heard of Ruskovich until I saw this collection listed on one of Lithub’s notable new releases article, but I immediately went out and bought her novel Idaho after finishing it. The stories are nuanced, observational, and beautifully crafted.

The first story, “Victor’s Room,” about a woman who begins to question the stories her husband has told her about his childhood home, was a favorite for me, as was “Round Lake,” in which a young woman works through the memory of her mother’s death while on a trip of Japan. I also loved the fantastical element of the title story, which brought a touch of magic into an otherwise very grounded set. While the other two stories did not feel quite as strong to me, overall I loved this collection.

[Hannah]

*4.5*
For anyone who read and obsessed over Emily Ruskovich's 2017 debut novel, IDAHO (if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?!), it will come as no surprise that NIGHTJAR, her newly-released collection of short stories, is astonishingly great. This collection reads more like a series of novellas, the Mid/Pacific Northwest worlds Ruskovich builds in each are as immersive and evocative as what you might find in longer works of fiction. Throughout, Ruskovich marries a stunning vision of the natural world with dark pockets of humanity. Each story balances on a line of exquisite tension; when the revelation comes, it's so perfect and sharp it cuts like an unfurling switchblade.

Emily Ruskovich: I cannot wait to read what you write next...

[Ann]

Five stories, one guiding principle: withhold the explanation and trust the atmosphere to carry the weight. Ruskovich, whose debut Idaho made a virtue of narrative slipperiness, applies the same patience here. Characters slide between the present and a half-remembered past, and the reader is left to reconcile the two.
The title story is the strangest and, for me, the most divisive. A bird most readers will only ever glimpse in field guides or hear described secondhand becomes the collection's emblem — nocturnal, camouflaged, known more by its call than its shape. Ruskovich barely lets it land on the page. It shows up in a reflection, in a moment of eye contact between bird and characters that could be nothing or could be everything, and then it's gone. That restraint is either the story's masterstroke or its missed opportunity, depending on how much you want your symbols spelled out. I kept waiting for the nightjar to do more — to earn its place as the book's namesake — and I'm still not sure it fully does. But there's something fitting in a collection this preoccupied with things sensed rather than seen using a bird nobody quite sees either.
The stronger stories — "Victor's Room," with its quiet unraveling of a husband's account of his own childhood, and "Owl," which won an O. Henry for good reason — ground the book's interest in secrecy and self-deception in something more immediate. Read together, the five stories reward patience more than they reward plot-chasing.

[Thanks to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for an opportunity to read and share my opinion of this book.]

[Fabián Tapia Quintero]

4/5.

Muy bien, Ruskovich, ahora quiero una novela 🤝.

Encantado de volver a leer a esta patrona. La mejor de las letras estadounidenses. Y como dije: Munro, nadie te extrañará 🙂‍↕️.

[Scott Ross]

"Victor's Room" and "Owl" are two of the best short stories I have read in a long time. Ruskovich can take you inside the head of her characters like few other authors. Can't wait for her next novel!

[Samantha]

Absolutely beautiful, deeply-felt stories, every single one.

[Kate Dizzy]

Nightjar is a haunting and beautifully crafted collection that explores the strange, often unspoken intuitions that shape ordinary lives. Emily Ruskovich creates stories filled with uncertainty, memory, grief, secrets, and relationships that are never quite as simple as they first appear.
Each story has its own emotional landscape, yet they are connected by a fascinating sense that something hidden is always waiting beneath the surface. The Pacific Northwest setting adds another layer of atmosphere, with its wilderness and isolation becoming almost as important as the characters themselves.
What makes these stories particularly memorable is their psychological depth. Ruskovich doesn't simply tell readers what her characters feel; she draws them into the characters' doubts, discoveries, and uneasy realizations.
For readers who enjoy literary fiction, atmospheric short stories, psychological complexity, and beautifully written explorations of human relationships, Nightjar is a compelling collection that lingers in the mind long after the final story.

[Ashley Gordon]

I've said this before and it's kind of silly, but short story collections intimidate me. I feel like I'm in a college English class again trying to find (or make) meaning between the stories.

This collection was not scary. This collection may be the best I've ever read. Are companies still making textbooks? If so, any of these stories could easily be found next to "A Rose for Emily" or "The Lottery."

There's so much to dig into in each one; they're quietly suspenseful and even psychological, covering a lot of themes.
Great characterization and pacing. I love the rural settings and connection to the natural world. These stories have a haunting quality that's almost hard to shake.

Of all the ARCs I read, I probably only feel the need to obtain a physical copy of maybe 10%. I need this one on my shelf!

A sincere thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!

[Alyssa Haley]

Simply divine. This is everything I look for in a short story collection and more. The writing is so so good and each story is atmospheric and haunting. There is a cohesiveness in the setting and the subtle horror of the mundane that hangs over every character. I really appreciate how grounded these stories are even as they brush against the uncanny The first story, Victor's Room will be with me forever. Emily Ruskovich you have bewitched me!

[Lolly K Dandeneau]

first shared via my blog: https://bookstalkerblog.wordpress.com/

𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒄𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔. 𝑺𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒂 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆, 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒍𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚.

This was an interesting collection of stories. Victor’s Room moved me; the writing is beautiful and evokes the pain of clarity after secrets are revealed. Truth, you see, can become malleable in our hands. Sometimes the memories people share are about what they wish had happened, in the face of the sorry things that occurred. Rebecca meets Grant in 1971 on her first day of college through a simple mistake, it sparks a relationship between she and the young professor that eventually leads to marriage and children. When his childhood home, a large farmhouse deep in the country, goes up for sale he talks her into buying it. It is not what she would have chosen for herself, but how can she deny her husband Grant the remaining connection to his beloved older brother Victor, dead for so long now? In the beginning she feels like a stranger in her own home, excluded from its history, but when they have two little girls, time moves forward and it is she who spends all her time on the land, in the house. Her doubts about Grant’s stories of his childhood continue to creep in, facts don’t add up, and then she makes a discovery, but what will she do with the proof of her knowledge? There are often short stories that I wish were a novel, and this is one of them. It was heartbreaking.

In Owl an accident leaves a woman named Jane injured, and her husband is left to feed her feral cats and stew over the events, mistakes of youth, and the way his wife entered his life. It is about buried desires, the hope we treasure and how sometimes our heart can make us wait forever, even endanger us. Some things take hold of our hearts and never release their grip, people too.

Round Lake is a story about memory too, the ways we unknowingly distort how and what we remember. The images that burn in our memory and grow into another thing, far from the incident itself. The chain of events Jane knows about her mother’s tragic drowning are altered when she swims at round lake and gets an ear infection. A trip to Tokyo, a blooming love, and what she carries of her mother come into conflict. Can she make room for herself, for a new beginning?

Petty Creek Road is about two brothers, Will and Butch, living together for decades, who mean more to each other with every passing year, though Will is unaware of the depth of his feelings until his brother’s death. Will is ‘appalled by the extreme nature of his own grief.’ Butch was the gentle, open-hearted one, the man that Will’s own son Cal, overtime, preferred. Butch and Cal have a wall between them, “Butch was the necessary string between their two sad tin cans,” so what now? How can they heal from their stunning loss, and find common ground when disappointment in each other has always divided them?

The title story, Nightjar, is about a twelve-year-old girl named Tess and a mystery she discovers one morning during her chores. While checking on the goats, Tess kicks their dirty bucket of water over, but the spill reveals a wonder, a miracle just for her. She is alive, obsessive about caring for it, all the other pressing things in her life fade into the background, this goes on for a while. In time, it is exhausting, the fear and worry that something could change her discovery, that one ingredient, one thing done differently could destroy things is draining her from the joy of the miracle. Even the glow of discovery can be too much. Love wanes, time alters, images cannot even remain, not a moment, not a reflection. We cannot control the world. But does she have what it takes to release herself from it?

I did not want the stories to end. I am eager for Emily Ruskovich’s next book. Yes, read it!

Published July 7, 2026

Random House

[Dan]

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance copy of this collection of short stories that deal with secrets, lies, longing for understanding, and the pain of being deceived, reflections of the damaged times we live in, and the effect it is having on all of us.

Interesting times is not a strong enough statement, or a curse, to describe the modern world we find ourselves living in. This is the Post-truth era, a time of fake news, fake social media posts, and false idolatry. Lying used to be a sin, now it is a currency, making people rich, stealing freedoms, privacy and even the water we need, polluting the air we breath. Deception is the name of the game, and no one feels they will ever be caught, nor deal with consequences. A dating profile that adds a foot of height, subtracts a few pants size, and even an occupation. As if the person being lied to won't notice. Or care. That is what I thought most while reading this collection. Most of these characters find themselves living lives of lies, and yet have to continue on. Truth is a burden to these characters. An observation about the world we live in. Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich is a collection about people who finally see how they are treated, how they are lied to, and what happens after, the pain, the emotions, and the momentum they need to keep going.

The book is five novellas more than stories. They range in places and in times, with families, single people, old and young. All are quite good. The first story was my favorite, about a woman slowly realizing that that things she thought she knew about her husband might not be real. A story told in isolation, far away from others, and the life she wanted. Owl the second story was one that I also liked, a story about violence, with a touch of magical realism and lots of confusion about how certain events could happen. There is a lot of this confusing as truths fall apart, sacred tales that don't seem to add up. About love, death, and other things.

I very strong collection. I usually skip a story or two in short story collections, as maybe something doesn't hit me, or interest me. This one I read all the way through. This is my first time reading anything by Ruskovich and I was quite impressed. The stories are well done, always going to places I didn't expect, nor thought I would care to visit. Ruskovich has a real gift with characters making them all different, even if the themes, memory, loss, lies are carried over story to story. There are characters I would like to know more about, and what might have lead up to certain things. Others are really complete, sometimes sadly.

For readers who want to understand how others look at the world, how truth is not truth to others. How people like to say things like for your own good, for your own protection. A few of these stories I am still thinking about, even after finishing the book a few days ago, wondering what I would change in life, and wondering how one could go on. Again my first time reading Ruskovich, but for sure an author I am going to follow.

[Raymond Muraida]

Not having read anything previously by the author, Emily Ruskovich, I must say that I was truly enchanted by her short story collection, Nightjar. Each story demonstrated Ruskovich’s strong mastery of the short story form. All five stories delved into lives of those who resided in the Pacific Northwest.
In “Victor’s Room,” Rebecca moves to her husband’s childhood home in the country to raise their daughters. What begins as a domestic transition slowly becomes something more unsettling. As Rebecca lives among the artifacts of her husband’s past, she starts noticing small inconsistencies in the stories he has told her. What I loved about this story is that Ms. Ruskovich carefully left clues for the reader to discover that something isn’t quite right about the husband. I felt Rebecca’s concerns building throughout the story.
“Owl,” which won an O. Henry Award, follows a man who is caring for his wife Jane after she is shot by four local boys who insist they believed she was an owl. This story left me just as unsettled as Victor’s Room had. The thought processes of Jane’s husband were spot on as he slowly unraveled what the heck was going on with his wife. Truly gut wrenching.
In “Round Lake,” Jade was raised by her uncle after her mother drowned when she was young. When her uncle reveals that a key part of her memory is incorrect, she begins to question how her past has shaped her life. Round Lake made me think of the things in my life that may have been false or misunderstood that have developed the person I am now and the person I’ll never be.
“Petty Creek Road” centers on Will and his brother Butch. Butch arrived at Will’s home one day and stayed for twenty-three years, helping raise Will’s son Cal. I will admit, of all of the stories, this was the one I liked the least. I just could not stay interested in their journey.
The title story, “Nightjar,” reflects on how even magical discoveries can lose their wonder over time. I thought about all the material things that I have bought over my lifetime, many that were just fads and soon were forgotten, many of them eventually trashed. I enjoyed how the young girl’s familiarity began to erode the magical moments that began her discovery.
After finishing this collection, I added the author’s first novel, Idaho, to my TBR list. Regarding Nightjar, I believe the strongest stories are the first three, though I’m not throwing any shade on the last two, as the final story completely enchanted me. The emotional insights and the quiet atmosphere make Nightjar a compelling and thought-provoking read and I recommend you give it a read.
An E-ARC of Nightjar by Emily Ruskovich was provided by NetGalley and Random House in exchange for my honest review. I also would like to thank Erica Hernandez of Penguin Random House for sharing this wonderful book with me.

[Kate Connell]

A strong collection of short stories, most feel like they could occur at almost anytime, anywhere. Ruskovich has the art of the short story down, with each of these stories feeling fleshed out, no matter the length of the tale.

Victor's Room: Rebecca marries her college professor, and after a few happy years of marriage in their town, Rebecca agrees to move to her husband's childhood home in the country, leaving her job in the city behind to raise their children. But as the memories her husband has from his childhood suffocate her new life, she begins to pick apart flaws in his memories. Did the dog die here or on the highway, is it buried in the backyard, did his brother Victor die in their childhood bedroom? As Rebecca unravels the truth behind her husband's lies, she must decide what the future holds for her and their two daughters.

Owl: When a man's wife (Jane) gets shot, he begins to take care of her and the cats that she feeds every day. He reminisces on how they met while trying to figure out what to do about the four young local boys involved in her shooting. He begins to wonder what precipitated the incident, while the boys continue to claim that they thought she was an owl.

Round Lake: Jade was raised by her uncle after her mother drowned when she was young. She begins talking on the phone each night to a man she knows who moved to Tokyo, and memories of her mother surface. She finds herself falling in love, perhaps not with the man himself, but with the memories he brings up in her and the man she imagines he is. When her uncle informs her that her memory of her mother's death is inaccurate, Jade begins to wonder how she could have clouded her memory like this and begins to consider how her past and memories of her mother have been shaping her future.

Petty Creek Road: Will's brother Butch came to Will's house one day and ended up staying twenty-three years and helped Will to raise his son, Cal. Neither man married, so when Butch dies in an accident, Will is overcome by his grief and realizes how much he owes to his brother. When his son quits his job to move back home with his father, the two must work to face the issues in their relationship with each other without Butch there to bridge the gap.

Nightjar: A story about how even the wonderous magical occurrences can become commonplace and lose their meaning. Tess discovers something magical on her family's land and shares the secret with her younger brother Rory. She lets the secret consume her summer, and even after school returns, she revisits the spot. As time passes, Tess begins to wonder what exactly makes something magic, and at what point one begins to take it for granted.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this collection.

[Lisa]

This collection is made up of five short stories, all connected by the same haunting, quietly devastating voice.
The first story, Victor's Room, follows Rebecca, a young mother who moves to a remote farmhouse where her husband spent his childhood. The story is told from her perspective as she wonders how she ended up there. She looks back on meeting her husband at university, where he taught and she was a student, and remembers their relationship, marriage, and the birth of their daughters. Over time, Rebecca realizes that many of her life choices were not truly her own, and she starts to see that her husband is not who he claimed to be. He tells her about growing up in the house, his childhood, and the death of his brother Victor, in a room that Rebecca later chooses as a sanctuary for herself. Reading this story made me feel uneasy; the relationship between Rebecca and her husband is very one-sided and manipulative.
The second story, Owl, follows a young man whose wife is shot by some neighbourhood boys who mistake her for an owl. Their relationship is already strained, so when she later disappears, he suspects either the boys are involved or that something from her past has finally caught up with her. I found this story heartbreaking and incredibly sad, with characters who feel like nothing more than victims of circumstance.
The third story, Round Lake, centers on a young woman who, after learning the truth about a key event in her life, starts to question everything, especially the life she has built around her memories. There were moments in this story I found incredibly easy to identify with. As I was reading, I kept thinking, I have totally responded this way, and this is exactly what I would have done.
Petty Creek Road is the one story I couldn't quite identify with. It follows two older brothers who, because of circumstances in life, move in with each other and become the best of friends. When Butch, the younger brother, is tragically killed, his brother Will has to come to terms with his loneliness, the relationship he has with his son, and a gift he has denied possessing until now.
The final story, Nightjar, is about a young girl, Tess, who has to look after her little brother Rory during summer vacation. While doing so, she experiences something miraculous that gives her a sense of purpose and peace in her otherwise lonely and isolated life. The relationship between the young girl and her brother is incredibly realistic, sometimes funny and very heartbreaking.
Emily Ruskovich is a talented writer. Her stories draw you in with their beauty, and her writing is rich with description and metaphor. She is one of the best writers I have read.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the copy.

[Lindsey]

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC!

When he was in the room with her, she loved him, she laughed with him, his presence was exhilarating and wonderful. But then he left and often she felt a sick and sinking feeling. As if the truth of him had accidentally been left behind, hovering there before her.

Carrying you through different times and spaces of the American pacific northwest, the stories of Nightjar are in turns eerie, subtle, languid, inevitable, and contemplative - or all at once. They each seat themselves in the mind of the narrator, peeking through their eyes and sifting through their thoughts as they unravel a truth; the false motive of a loved one, a misremembered tragedy, a misplaced purpose or fixation. Ruskovich's writing expertly expressed those secret feelings we all have, the doubts and lies and memories swirling in our minds as we navigate relationships, family, trauma. The stories' narrators ranged from children to old men, but they all carried the same sense of introspection. I found myself struck many times by her ability to put words to experiences I had as a child, or memory tricks my mind had played on me, or the nuances of strained relationships.

He had never lied in his life. And where had it come from, this terrible lie that served only to ruin him? He was aware that he was undoing the best thing he'd ever done in his life and that he'd never be able to get it back, he'd never now be able to say the truth and be believed.

She is very stingy with dialogue, but often to poignant effect. She relies heavily on description and inner monologue, sketching out the webs of a place, a person, a mind - and then all of a sudden the conflict appears as if it had been there from the beginning, though you thought you were just reading preamble.

Altogether, this collection of stories was beautiful and thought-provoking, and at times too methodical for my taste. I enjoyed the touches here and there of magical realism, though sometimes I felt Ruskovich relied too heavily on the narrators' intuition to advance the plots. Given that the stated theme of the collection involves this, I can forgive it.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly)]

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.

http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2026/0...

[Janalyn, the blind reviewer]

Night Jar by Emily Ruskovich, in this story collection there's five lengthy stories, would the exception of the first one I had a hard time connecting to the title story nightjar made no sense to me I mean it did make sense but didn’t make sense the stories in between that and the first story had no real ending and no real main plot to the story also from the summary I thought the stories were going to be edgy but they’re just stories about people who live rurerly there is a lightly veiled main theme and that is relationships but every story with more than one character can be called the story about a relationship these aren’t horrible unreadable stories well they’re confusing some of them like in the last story when test found the black thing I thought the story would focus on that but it went in all kinds of directions, the third story Round Lake, is a story about a girl who is working and living in Japan but most of the story is about her talking to a guy on the phone in her ear infection, the third story Petty Creek Road, it’s about two brothers who live in Montana and have some sort of revelation after a tragic incident… IDK. this is the beginning line to that story Will and Butch live together for 23 years before they even realize that’s what they were doing in this revelation blue Wills mind. my least favorite is Owl and I know they have blind sick cats in it, which one would think would be enough to hold my attention but I kept daydreaming and thinking of other stuff while trying to read the story. if any of these stories sound good to you definitely give it a read there are many reviews that like it although I have read some and I find a few of them sus on whether they actually read all the stories having said that I did read them and I can honestly say the first one about the couple that moves to the husband Fred‘s childhood home where his brother died in although the wife is pretty certain the brother did die she’s not sold on this farmhouse being the one he died in or whether Fred even lived there at all. read at your own risk you may love it. #NetGalley, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview,