Mercy
“Together, six narrators create a captivating audiobook production, instilling humanity into a story where listeners might believe there is none left…From the recounted lives of L. J. Ganser’s regretful yet matter-of-fact Ivan to Nan McNamara’s downhearted but resigned Ginger-turned-Astrid and beyond, listeners will learn that a seemingly isolated incident is never as isolated as we believe. These skillfully interwoven performances will encourage listeners to reflect on their own personal histories. Winner of the Earphones Award.”
Kirkus Audiobook Reviews
Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize
Winner of the Earphones Award for Narration
An Amazon Editors' Pick of Best Fiction
A Time Magazine Best Book of 2025
A Kirkus Reviews Pick of Best Books of the Month
The rich and nuanced story of a moment of fear and abandonment that reverberates across decades and changes the course of many lives, by beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Joan Silber.
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 emergency room 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.
Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Silber's most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.
Praise