The 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.
...a deeply felt story about a prisoner awaiting execution in 1940s Louisiana ... Winthrop's remarkable fourth novel ... This is a novel filled with cruelty and dread, baying mobs and ugly terminology. However, Winthrop tempers the gloom and the hate with gestures of kindness, instances of resolve and redemption and unexpected outcomes ... Winthrop’s brilliantly orchestrated voices, evocative detail and almost unbearable narrative tension add up to an exceptional reading experience.
The Mercy Seat is a miracle of a novel, with rapid-fire sentences that grab you and propel you to the next page. It's the kind of book that makes you want to get out a pencil and diagram its structure and figure out why it's so compelling ... Part of the attraction has to do with Winthrop's withholding of information, with hints, then pulling the rug out from underneath the reader ... Just know that you'll be rewarded if you stick with Winthrop's narrative strategy ... This does not mean that The Mercy Seat should be considered, in any way, as fun. It's a tragedy, heartbreaking and devastating in its conclusions. It illuminates the ways that racism and hate can tear communities apart, and Winthrop is ruthless — but not didactic — in the telling ... She has done her homework on the Jim Crow era — and nails the details ... It's a breakout. It's a wonder.
...a tale taut with tension ... In this exceptionally powerful novel, Elizabeth Winthrop explores matters of justice, racism and the death penalty in a fresh, subtle and profoundly affecting way. Her kaleidoscopic narrative allows us to inhabit the lives of her characters and see them for what they are - complex individuals, making fateful choices we might not condone, but can understand.
Winthrop provides nice nuance by showing that Polly’s decision to follow Southern custom by ensuring that a black man suspected of being involved with a white woman is put to death was more complicated than readers might have assumed ... Winthrop writes most tenderly of Willie’s father ... Unfortunately, Frank’s role, and those of the other black characters, is marginal, as the book is more dedicated to exposing how the whites who are sympathetic to what Willie represents inevitably fail him. Winthrop does so by invoking those all-too-familiar tropes of Southern literature ... Though ambitious in its goals, the book stumbles, causing Willie and his family to suffer more than they already have.
Winthrop’s survey of these divergent lives compounds their individual pain into a withering critique of a cancerous society. This potent novel about prejudice and the constraints of challenging the status quo will move and captivate readers, especially those looking for socially conscious historical fiction.
