Owl

One Story Literary Magazine #190

by Emily Ruskovich, Hannah Tinti (Editor)

Set near Bonners Ferry at the turn of the last century, Emily Ruskovich’s “Owl” is a mystery wrapped in a love triangle wrapped in an historical thriller. A husband cares for his wife, shot in a hunting accident by a group of local boys. But lingering in the air is a puzzle he cannot solve—what was she doing in the woods that night? No matter how he tries, he can’t shake his feelings of suspicion, until they lead to a hunt of his own, and a confrontation that reveals a long-held secret.

Unknown Binding

Published March 6, 2014

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

[Bella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this short story better than I liked the same author's novel, Idaho. The characters in the story belonged in the story and were a little more fleshed-out than those in the book. But except for the husband, we don't learn much about any of the characters, especially the wife, Jane, and she was crucial to the plot.

I like this author's understated way of describing things, but I think she might be a little too restrained. In her novel, I had no idea why the characters were doing the things they were doing. In this story, I did have an inkling of why the wife was doing what I think she was doing, though I'm not sure. I do like ambiguity in books and short stories, but not quite this much. Still, this is a beautifully told story.

To those looking for the flowery descriptions found in this author's debut novel, you won't find them in this story. It's a good story, quite understated, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. More characterization, more plot, more something than her debut novel.

The detail in "Owl" was beautiful. The restraint was beautiful, and it was restraint one can get away with in a short story but not in a novel. I felt for the husband in "Owl," but I couldn't have cared less about Jane, the wife. Maybe that's a fault of Ruskovich's, I don't know, but while I'd hold it against her in a novel, I don't in a short story.

I will definitely read more of Ruskovich's stories, and I will read her second novel, but if she doesn't give me more fleshed-out characters in a second novel, I'm out, as far as her novels go. I do appreciate her restraint, something not seen often enough in novels today, but I do want to get involved with the characters as well, at least get to know them.