RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewThe book grows out of the historical record of the South at a time when the newly arrived electric chair was beginning to make the lynch mob obsolete. The particular crude machine in The Mercy Seat performs in ways that lead the reader to think deeply about capital punishment and why some are drawn either to support it or to hate it ... At first, the many little sections might put off a few readers, but soon they generate a great deal of narrative tension, and The Mercy Seat becomes a well-timed page turner ... This is a worthy novel that gathers great power as it rolls on propelled by its many voices. Though a reader might wish it were longer, that the prisoner had more to share or that his lover had her say, in a strange way, the reader’s longing for more shows just how accomplished this work is.
