In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan experiments with heroin with Eddie, things go horribly wrong. Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, leaves him there. This one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from the remorse that never dies. Ivan's decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night.
A novel-in-stories, a single fictional universe with a rotating cast of narrators, connected by threads of plot and meaning that unfold over the course of the book as they would in a novel. At the same time, the sections leap decades and continents to uniquely dazzling effect ... The central questions set up by Ivan’s opening story remain on the table, even as Silber’s roomy form opens the door to new ones. If you are interested in friendship and betrayal, pain and relief, the power of sex, the ever-present mixture of love and misunderstanding between generations of a family, the process of coming to terms with one’s past — the characters of Mercy have some stories they would like to tell you.
Part of what’s so interesting about Silber’s novel is the thread of logic she follows from a character’s moment of decision to their subsequent feelings of isolation ... The alchemy of forgiveness is complex. Forgiveness, Silber seems to say, requires the right conditions. The person has to be open to it, but more importantly, they must rely on mercy. This, indeed, is the compelling and beautiful idea at the heart of Joan Silber’s novel.
Exhilarating ... Delivers voltage, tang and playfulness through a steady, probing interiority ... Burnished with wisdom both timeless and modern ... These voices effectively meld into one — canny, wry, hyperalert — in lively conversation with itself ... Smart, winning, intricately drawn ... Silber’s tender fatalism — engaged but slightly distanced — comforts us.
