...[a] remarkable, powerful novel ... The book’s concluding chapters are finely nuanced as Donald wrestles with his moral dilemma, and his own unwitting contributions to it. Does he make the right decision? It’s impossible to know, but Livesey makes you wonder and reconsider — and admire her skill in giving you no obvious answers.
...our interest derives less from the piecing together of clues and practical facts than from the surprisingly moving voice of the narrator himself ... Livesey’s prose has a brusque sensuality: It reads lucid and forthright and lean ... In constructing a narrator who is at once transparent and opaque, Livesey roots tension not just in the bones but in the very marrow of the book. In the end, this is not so much a crime novel as a novel about a trial: the story of one man’s austere endeavor to hold himself to account.
At best, this [alternating narrators] mechanism offers a subtle commentary on the way Viv and Donald process their shared life. But Mercury suffers from a self-consciousness that undermines whatever elegant observation this mechanism allows. Both Don and Viv indicate that they’re writing down their own version of events. But why are they doing this? To exchange their true confessions like pen pals sending missives from the living room to the kitchen? ... It’s a book that doesn’t quite measure up to its ambitions.
'...while she clearly enjoys pop-novelist techniques, with all the suspension of disbelief they require, Ms. Livesey rarely gives in to stock characterizations or mere page-turning titillation. She’s a patient builder of complex characters who are often brought face to face with uncomfortable truths about themselves ... The best-seller lists are full of slapdash if rousing plots. Margot Livesey sometimes finds a place on those lists, and Mercury is not a bad candidate. That a gun goes off at a crucial moment, however, is not the reason to pick it up. Intricately convincing relationships, and accomplished sentence-making, are.
Donald’s signposting of the story’s events and emotional undercurrents can occasionally grow tiresome, but Ms. Livesey knows her way around human desire and disappointment. Like the recent blockbusters Gone Girl and Fates and Furies, Mercury gives us a marriage from alternating perspectives. Unlike those books, there is no looming gimmick or twist.
These strands of allusion and connotation — some as subtle as gossamer, some as conspicuous as a hawser — contribute to the novel’s deftly manipulated tension. I cannot in good conscience reveal more of the plot. I came to this story in a state of innocence, and I feel that its terrific power depended in great part on the gradual unfolding of unlooked-for events. So, I leave this pleasure for you to experience in its unadulterated form.
Livesey doesn’t force answers to these questions. Rather, she presents them to readers as keys to unlocking the mettle-testing cages she builds around her characters. Mercury is a page-turner, but the aftertaste smacks of sadness and uncertainty, with just a shred of hope that an equilibrium might be reached between ambition and family.
...a probing morality study that chips away at the age-old question: Would you turn in a loved one if you knew they did something reprehensible? ... Structured in three sections — two from Donald’s long-winded and heavy-handed perspective and one from Viv’s — the plot lags when it dwells on the psychology behind Don and Viv’s splintered union. But Livesey makes up for it by throwing a wrench into the narrative.
The suspense of the first several chapters of Mercury is thrilling. That’s because Livesey’s prose works best when it races smoothly along from unexpected event to impossible development, the words camouflaging the inner workings of the storytelling. In this novel, however, Livesey’s joinery is less than perfect, and in places seems downright creaky, all the more so because it’s visible ... Eventually Livesey recovers her usual light touch, and, leaving contrivance behind, brings the novel home to a satisfying resolution.
The author doesn’t force answers to these questions, rather presents them to readers as keys to unlocking the mettle-testing cages she builds around her characters. The strain of the ethical and moral dilemmas rips at Donald and Viv’s marriage until it’s in pieces. But Livesey’s use of these difficult, open-ended questions corrals readers to ask themselves if they’d fare any better ... Mercury is a page-turner, but the aftertaste smacks of sadness and uncertainty, with just a shred of hope that an equilibrium might be reached between ambition and family.
Mercury is fast-paced, with the feel of life as lived. The secondary characters are well-drawn, including the couple's two children, caught up in the family drama ... Viv's voice helps us understand the limits of what Donald sees and understands about her, just as it explains how she has been blinded by Mercury's light. Livesey never seems as completely invested in her, however, and it's a relief when the story returns to the perspective of our myopic eye doctor, who can see what has happened to his family only after it's too late.
