Mercy: A Novel

Summary

A rich and nuanced story beginning with a moment of fear and abandonment that will reverberate across decades and change the course of many lives, by a beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author

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 and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave 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 “a remorse that never dies.” Ivan’s decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people connected to that night.

Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Joan Silber’s most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.

“Joan Silber’s sweeping yet intimate novel traces the delicate patterns by which others, often from afar and unknowingly, may determine our innermost longings and even our fate. Mercy is a profound, gorgeously written reflection on identity, friendship, and love. A book that keeps echoing long after turning the last page.”—Hernan Diaz, author of Trust, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

Narrated by L.J. Ganser, Nan McNamara, Christina Moore, Alyssa Bresnahan, Helen Laser, and Nick Walther