Night Watch

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Most of the 12 stories in this collection are set in Ontario, but their
location could be anywhere in North America. The central characters tend
to be women nearing the age of 50. Their lives are unrewarding,
sometimes depressing, usually empty. Their family relationships, whether
with sons or parents or husbands, are unhappy. Love isn’t enduring;
it’s a destructive, fleeting emotion. In “Clafouti aux cerises,”
Judith is trying to decide whether or not to leave her unfaithful
husband after almost 25 years together. In “Justine and Rockette”
Justine’s destructive relationship with Terry drives her to an
obsession with library book due-date stamps. The dog Rockette
affectionately nudges her, breaking the dismal pattern of her life and
introducing the suggestion of a fresh start. In “Intervals Between
Wars” Sandra uses her lacklustre husband for temporary
self-gratification, offers platitudes of comfort to her defeated son
(“‘Peter, hard times end; they get better.’ She can’t seem to
stop lying.”), steals from her clients, and thinks about the peace
achieved by her dead mother.

Four stories, gathered together under the title “Night Watch: A
Quartet,” portray scenes in the life of a woman named Pamela. The
Pamela stories are written with more detail and description than the
others, which are stark and unembellished, like the lives of the
characters. Although the threads of the four Pamela stories are
interwoven, the stories can also stand alone.

Zettell’s descriptions of relationships, even the most bizarre, are
painfully realistic. Her vivid portrayal of Everywoman anxieties (the
children gone wrong, like Pamela’s drug-seduced son Martin in “Night
Watch”; the husband who strays from the placid contentment of a
marriage gone dull) evoke sympathy and, more important, move the reader
to protest and self-examination.