The Hard to Catch Mercy: A Novel

By William Baldwin

From lowcountry writer William Baldwin comes a new edition of his 1993 Lillian Smith Award–winning novel, The Hard to Catch Mercy. Including a new introduction by the author, this Southern Revivals edition makes available once more a story that touches on the issues of religion, race, and coming-of-age in the post–Civil War South, when the lines between these issues were not always clear. Set in fictional Cedar Point, a small southern community in the early 1900s, The Hard to Catch Mercy is told through the eyes of a young boy, Willie T., who is forced to confront the changing world around him. Including a cast of incredibly outlandish characters, Baldwin’s novel is a wild, darkly comic tale rich with trick mules, Christian voodoo, fire, brimstone, first love, death, and the end of the world as Willie T. knows it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611175226

William Baldwin

With the publication of The Hard to Catch Mercy, the Los Angeles Times compared William Baldwin to both Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison, and the New York Times declared the work to be "a fine send up of the Great Southern Novel." Baldwin is a lifelong resident of the South Carolina Lowcountry. He has authored and co-authored numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, including Mrs. Whaley and Her Charleston Garden, The Fennel Family Papers, Heaven is a Beautiful Place, Inland Passages and Mantelpieces of the Old South.