Mercy Street: A Novel

Written by Jennifer Haigh

Narrated by Stacey Glemboski

“Ms. Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo.”—Janet Maslin, New York Times

The highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh—“a gifted chronicler of the human condition” (Washington Post Book World)—is a tense, riveting story about the disparate lives that intersect at a woman’s clinic 

For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance.

But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door. As the protests intensify, fear creeps into Claudia’s days, a humming anxiety she manages with frequent visits to Timmy, an affable pot dealer in the midst of his own existential crisis. At Timmy’s, she encounters a random assortment of customers, including Anthony, a lost soul who spends most of his life online, chatting with the mysterious Excelsior11—the screenname of Victor Prine, an anti-abortion crusader who has set his sights on Mercy Street and is ready to risk it all to protect the unborn.

Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present. Jennifer Haigh, “an expert natural storyteller with a keen sense of her characters’ humanity” (New York Times), has written a groundbreaking novel, a fearless examination of one of the most divisive issues of our time.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9780062223104

Jennifer Haigh

Jennifer Haigh is the author of the short-story collection News from Heaven and six bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, including Mrs. Kimble, Faith and Heat and Light, which was named a Best Book of 2016 by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and NPR. Her books have won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Massachusetts Book Award and the PEN New England Award in Fiction, and have been translated widely. She lives in New England.

Reviews for Mercy Street

[marquis784-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 rounded up to 4
This is a well written book which makes it difficult for me to give it a low rating. I can’t quite put my thoughts to words at the moment as to what didn’t resonate with me. An organized review to follow.

[baystatera · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

OK, wow. Mercy Street is Jennifer Haigh’s best book yet, and that’s saying a lot. Just finished listening to this on audio. Narrated perfectly by Stacey Glembosky, who doesn’t overdo the accents for the characters in Boston, Maine, and Midwest. You might think a book set in and around a women's health clinic that provides abortions would be grim and message-y but the author has fully developed, believable characters with close and distant connections to the Mercy Street clinic and makes the motivations of even the whacko extremists on the anti-abortionist side understandable.

[ccayne_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Haigh does a great job of bringing the complexities of women and pregnancy to light. I appreciated the struggles Claudia had and how she dealt with her life - it felt real and not stereotypical. I am curious about Anthony - I liked him and I assume Haight meant for him to be a sympathetic character. I also appreciated that she didn't wrap up the novel with a tidy ending.

[pdebolt_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Jennifer Haigh has once again proven her talent as a gifted writer in this timely, aptly-named novel set in Boston during a very harsh winter. The characters include Claudia, working as a counselor in a women's healthcare clinic in Boston; Anthony, living on disability in his mother's basement due to a traumatic brain injury; Timmy, a local drug dealer; and Victor, a far-right Vietnam veteran obsessed with white supremacy and the self-imposed need to stop abortions at any cost. The protestors who meet daily outside the clinic are seemingly unaware that the clinic provides health care for women that goes beyond termination of pregnancies. These self-righteous people feel entitled to confront women with scripture and hate. There is apparently no need for them to recognize or understand the factors that lead women to the difficult decision of abortion. Where are these people when unwanted children are born?Haigh does a deep dive into all the factors that lead to a currently deeply-divided country. She explores the issues around abortion, gun control, racism, the Catholic church's unremitting stance on abortion, children in foster care, and the angry people living on the fringes of society. These seemingly-unrelated characters are all meant to meet with an unexpected, perhaps hopeful, ending.I applaud Jennifer Haigh for another noteworthy book. One of her previous novels, Faith, is also thought-provoking. She is definitely an author to follow.

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very realistic and slice-of-life, but I wanted a more concise ending.

[kayanelson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

To me this book was just okay. It feels like a book I would have read 20 years ago and would have liked then. The storyline, about the abortion clinic, is still relevant but I feel like this book has been done before, it was a relief when it ended so that I can read something better.

[timbazzett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book just so flat out blew me away that I'm at a loss for words. MERCY STREET, Jennifer Haigh's latest, is a bullseye look at the way America is today, with all its nastiness, pettiness, division, hate, small mindedness hypocrisy and more. In it, Haigh once again takes aim at one of her favorite targets, the Church, specifically its antiabortion stance. But she also tackles white male supremacy, online porn, far right talk radio, gun nuts, survivalists, our health care system mess and the eternal plight of the marginalized poor and ignorant. Yeah, really. It's all in there, just like a giant jar of Prego. And it all converges on a Boston health center for women, which too many see only as "an abortion clinic." The central character is Claudia Birch, a divorced, forty-plus worker at the Mercy Street clinic, who grew up as "trailer trash" in rural Maine, but escaped to college and a somewhat better, if lonely, life. On a daily basis, she fights her way to work through crowds of obnoxious pro-life protesters. One of these is Anthony, a traumatic brain injury victim on disability who lives in his mother's basement and attends daily mass with an odd assortment of old people faithful. As a cradle Catholic, I found myself chortling and even guffawing in the initial Anthony chapter with its descriptions of Catholic rituals, education and brainwashing. And it takes place at the (fictional) parish of St Dymphna, patron saint of mental illness. Claudia doesn't know Anthony but they both know Timmy Flynn, the friendly local pot dealer, another important player here, with an angry ex-wife and teenage son down in Florida. And finally there is Victor Prine, Vietnam vet and retired long haul trucker, deeply influenced by years of white supremacy talk radio, and now waging a one-man antiabortion crusade, planting handmade signs across the country. (And, incidentally, he is from the former coaltown of Bakerton, Haigh's setting for her best-selling trilogy.) These four fascinating characters' lives all begin to merge in a riveting narrative that kept me turning pages deep into the wee hours, finally culminating in a conclusion that took me totally by surprise - but I liked it.Well, I guess I found words after all. And in case you haven't guessed, I loved this book. It gets my very highest recommendation.- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

[reader1009-863136 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

fiction - woman employed at a women's clinic develops a friendship with her weed dealer (who also deals to an anti-abortion activist) in modern-day Boston; also, an unpleasant reminder of modern terrorists.not sure how the author researched all the weed business stuff (she probably isn't at liberty to say, in any case) but that part felt very real. The bits about the mentally/emotionally damaged doomsday preppers, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists also seemed way too real, considering the state of the US right now, but I also am wary of writing them off as crazy because there are so many people who have been drawn into this world and I'd hate to think they're all "crazy." I think the author attempted to give them background stories to remind us that they're human (along with all of the women who visit the clinic, each with their own reasons for going there), but having to face these personalities so bent on destruction made for a disturbing reading experience. Also not sure how to feel about the ending, since things so very narrowly escaped a terrible outcome by chance.not the happiest book but certainly suspenseful; characters are complicated and their situations thought-provoking.

[froxgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

During the unbearable winter of 2015, two men of ill intentions, and a pot dealer and an abortion clinic worker bump against each other in this novel. Claudia is a daughter of the hardest scrabble northern Maine, where her mother takes in foster children for additional money while working two menial jobs. Claudia manages to leave her difficult life in the small poor rural town of Clayburg, her indifferent mother and a stepfather who is showing signs of sexual desire for her for college and establishes a life in Boston, where she marries for no good reason, divorces for the same, and becomes a counselor at the Mercy Street Women's clinic. Slightly mad Victor creates a website showing photos of women who have used the services of Mercy Street, which is devoted to women's health and not just to abortions. His friend Anthony takes the photos. A friend of three, Timmy the pot dealer sees the coming legalization of weed as a chance to escape his narrow life but needs one last big score. The worlds of rural Maine and urban Boston are the main characters here and they are immaculately drawn. Sadly, the humans are not, and their purposes are blurry, as is the purpose of this novel.

[ridgewaygirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is about Claudia, who has run the clinic on Mercy Street for years, during the winter Boston was hit by snowstorm after snowstorm. She's never been afraid and sometimes argues with the protestors who stake out the entrance and yell at the women attempting to access the clinic's many services. She has a weed dealer named Timmy she visits now and again. Timmy fell into the job a long time ago and now that his son is a teenager, he's thinking that it's past time for him to start a legitimate business and make a life where his son could come and live with him. Anthony also visits Timmy. He hasn't been the same since a workplace accident put him on disability, but the weed helps with the vertigo and the headaches. Anthony found a place to belong in his local church and a priest has him running an anti-abortion website for him. He has a friend he only knows by his internet name, and who has asked him to take pictures of women entering the clinic on Mercy Street for him. Haigh does a great job with the structure of taking unconnected characters and gradually showing how they relate to one another and putting those characters on a collision course. And while the novel centers on a women's clinic and the people it serves, this isn't a book that exists to drive home a political point. The characters are all so believable and human, from the drug dealer to the guy with very unfortunate views about women. I've read a few of Haigh's novels now and I've enjoyed the thoughtful way she approaches polarizing subject matter in every one.