ightbird is Shavaun Scott’s profoundly intimate memoir that charts one woman’s perilous journey through a childhood steeped in religious guilt, suffocating family dynamics, and an industrial hometown where “breathing was dangerous”—amid cycles of abuse, gaslighting, and heartbreak she fights to hold onto her sense of self—until a
haunting moment where the man she has loved leaves her with a devastating goodbye, casting blame at her feet.
Scott takes us through the turbulence of a life shaped by deep-rooted superstition, fundamentalist religion, and crushing grief. Themes of mental illness and intimate partner abuse are explored with unflinching honesty. Scott sheds light on this poorly understood topics, on the aggressive nature of a subtype of suicide associated with domestic violence. She show us the motivations behind revenge suicide, and the process of recover from it.
Propelled by a fierce will to understand the human mind, Shavaun discovers psychology as both salvation and profession. As she transitions from a frightened, isolated child to a crisis intervention therapist, she bears witness to the complicated truths behind mental illness and the limits of therapy.
Nightbird is her raw testament: a testament to survival, the power of community, and the liberation that comes from naming our shadows and breaking free of self-destructive bonds. Visceral, unflinching, and ultimately hopeful, Nightbird reminds us that healing is possible-even after standing on the edge of our darkest fears as she paints a poignant portrait that sheds a bright light on intimate partner abuse leading to revenge suicide, grief, and the hard-won transformation of self-recovery.
