A Mercy

By Toni Morrison

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In "one of Morrison's most haunting works" (New York Times) the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, like Beloved, it is the story of a mother and a daughter—a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

In the 1680s the slave trade in the Americas is still in its infancy. Jacob Vaark is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh North. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, who can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Rejected by her mother, Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, and later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 11, 2008
• ISBN: 9780307270443

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) was a Nobel Prize–winning American author, editor, and professor. Her contributions to the modern canon are numerous. Some of her acclaimed titles include: The Bluest Eye, Song of Solomon, and Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. She won the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Reviews for A Mercy

[bnbooklady · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Morrison focuses the story around four women. Rebekka is white, the wife of Jacob Vaark, a landowner and trader who bought Lina, a Native American woman, to work as a servant for her. Despite their initial distrust and dislike of each other, Rebekka and Lina forge an unlikely partnership and quickly come to depend on each other. Out of kindness, Rebekka and her husband have taken in Sorrow, a poor black girl who has been raped and abused, and later Florens, the daughter of a slave, who comes into the master’s care when her mother begs him to take her daughter from their current master as payment for a debt.The narrative alternates between these characters without warning or notation and switches between first- and third-person perspectives. The action centers on Florens, who has left the farm on a mission to find the blacksmith, with whom she is in love, and who she believes can help cure the Mistress of illness she has fallen into. Morrison gives us chapters from Florens’s perspective, as she expresses her love and desire for the blacksmith and narrates her journey to find him, and I found those to be the most compelling parts of the book.Morrison also gives us Rebekka’s perspective and Lina’s point-of-view, both of which are interesting, but neither of which compares to the chapters on Sorrow, who, after giving birth, becomes Complete. Morrison’s use of symbolism and her trademark depth of meaning are at work in A Mercy, and she succeeds in telling a powerful story that at only 169 pages packs quite a punch.I am so in love with Morrison’s writing that I’m finding it difficult to summarize the plot of the book, so I’ll skip the full-length book review and simply say that this is a fantastic read and an excellent exploration of the issues of race, class, color, and gender that Morrison always consistently handles with insight, intelligence, and precision. Not a single word is wasted.Further discusson at The Book Lady's Blog.

[kylekatz · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A Mercy is a very fine book about colonial America told from many perspectives. The characters are; a white farmer and trader of goods; his mail-order bride from England; their servants, a Native American woman and a free, but severely traumatized African woman; and some hired black men, some indentured and one free, who come to work on their farm. The memories of many of these are explored and the way their stories intersect is shown from several angles. Lays bare the stark cruelty of slavery in many ways and the especial trials of women unprotected by men, as well as how infant mortality and smallpox affect this tiny community. Also how narrow religious beliefs, mixed with the superstitions of the time could have a pernicious, even fatal, influence on people. All this is accomplished through personal stories of characters who come alive in the pages of this thin book. Only 167 pages. Highly recommended.

[theeclecticreview · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was recommended as one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and it was a thought-provoking read from the perspective of slaves and slave owners in early Colonial America.

[copperskye · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully written, spare, almost poetic story of 17th century America.

[ma_washigeri · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't know how anyone can read Toni Morrison to analyse how she writes because her words sink me effortlessly into her world and I walk with her characters - no way to stand back. This book has an ever shifting voice as each person speaks. And while you can feel the distance of time in the voices, there is no distance in the relevance to today.

[sherton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was recommended as one of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and it was a thought-provoking read from the perspective of slaves and slave owners in early Colonial America.

[debs4jc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in the colonial period, the story shifts from point of view to another and centers around a young slave girl who is sold--at the encouragement of her mother--to a settler. The mother encouraged this because she observed that the settler seemed to be a kind man, and indeed he does seem to treat the slave girl well. However as the reader sees in the lives of all the characters life on the frontier is harsh and life during those times was often marked with cruelty and injustice.This story was a slow read for me, the dialogue and the way the reader was thrown into the middle of it made it hard to figure out was was going on, especially at first. It does tackle some tough issues, which made a good book for discussion at our book group meeting but all of the members did struggle with actually reading it.

[limelite_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(CD audiobook) Multiple points of view are flawlessly woven into a seamless imagining of early colonial American life when slaves and indentured servants far outnumbered free people in the southern colonies.Toni Morrison narrates her own novel in a unique and captivating style, giving her words weight with poetic tempo and pauses that lend an understated drama to the story, making it compelling and a bit hypnotic.Characters are easy to like, plot elements keep the action moving without being over-dramatic, and thematic development is masterful. You will walk away from this book knowing how slavery demeans everyone and makes all -- whether slave or not -- utterly dependent on each other. This interdependence may have the surface appearance of a family unit, but in a crisis, that pretense shatters to the detriment of all.There is every reason to recommend this novel, not the least of which is the narration, but also the beauty of restrained prose, and the care given to its historicity.

[crazy4reading · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is set in the 1680's around the slave trade. I found this book a little confusing at times. I couldn't figure out who was doing the talking or narrating at times. You have a mother who tries to save her daughter by selling her into slavery. The daughter has to try and deal with abandonment.The daughter is sold to Sir who owns a farm. She is not familiar with working on a farm and is not very useful at first. This was an okay book.

[janeajones · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant. Heart-breaking.

[anniels-2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Expectedly lyrical

[suesbooks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was very disappointed in this book after The Bluest Eye. I felt it was repetitive and tedious. It was also very difficult to keep track of the characters and to know who was speaking. The information regarding people who are enslaved and how religion and families are involved is very important, and I wish it had been presented more clearly.

[goofyocean110 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fairly quickly on, I realized that really the strength of this book is in its character study. With that framework, I settled in to enjoy this. There is essentially no plot or action.The story is set in colonial Maryland and is about the people on a farmstead - the farmer/trader, his wife, an Indian servant, two female slaves, a black freedman blacksmith, and two white indentured servants. Through each of their viewpoints, we see how each are affected by the death of the farmer/trader and the sickness/recovery of his wife. We learn how they came to be on the farm, their roles, their relationships, their conditions, their aspirations, their betrayals.The most interesting things about the interview with Toni Morrison afterwards, I felt, was the theme of betrayal and how each character acted/reacted within the context of the options available - that none of them were particularly good or wicked people, but that each profoundly affected the life of the others.The story is beautifully told but somewhat hard to follow at times -- at least listening to. The narration abruptly switches between viewpoints and times. Though there is a clear and consistent 'I' and 'you', it is sometimes difficult to figure out which characters these are.It is, however, overall, an excellent narrative and characterization of what it was like to live in colonial Maryland, rich with detail and an exposition of the difficulties and potential futures of the various characters - each of which represent or illustrate various social classes/status. Morrison spent a good deal of effort and interest in the research, and it shows.

[mamashepp · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Truly a 3.5. Beautifully prose, vivid portrayal of early Colonial America. This is a story of slavery of all kinds, love and betrayal. Morrison tells the story through many different characters, primarily Florens, an African slave who tells her story from the first person and is talking to someone we can't immediately identify. The time and place jumping can be confusing.

[paulagraph · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Classic Morrison. Reminiscent of Beloved while set at an earlier (late 17th century) more fluid point in the developing story of "race" and "family" in the "New World." Not as complex or sustained as the author's aforementioned masterpiece, however. Morrison cuts and runs a bit too soon for this novel to achieve similar greatness. The destinies of A Mercy's motley assemblage of characters is perhaps summed up in this paragraph late in the novel (p. 155): "They once thought they were a kind of family because together they had carved companionship out of isolation. But the family they imagined they had become was false. Whatever each one loved, sought or escaped, their futures were separate and anyone's guess. One thing was certain, courage alone would not be enough. Minus bloodlines, he saw nothing yet on the horizon to unite them. Nevertheless, remembering how the curate described what existed before Creation, Scully [an indentured as well as a hired hand:] saw dark matter out there, thick, unknowable, aching to be made into a world."
As for the moral of the story. Leave that to the mother who abandons/ gives away her daughter in order to "save" her: "to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing."

[tercat-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I've reached a point in this book where I'm really enjoying it. I've heard people say that it's sort of a companion book to Beloved, and I get that. One of the things I like best about Beloved is how it pulls together so many of the themes that Morrison uses throughout many of her novels. A Mercy does the same thing, and so I think it does hark back to Beloved (both in terms of plot similarities and in terms of its major themes), but it also fits very nicely into her body of work as a whole. I'll probably have more to say on that once I've finished the book.

Okay--I'm done now. This was a tough one to rate, because it's hard for me to think about any of Morrison's books without comparing them to her other novels. The very end of the book pushed it up a notch for me. Her writing in this book is perhaps especially poetic in that it's very packed. I think it would stand up to serious study. Having said that, some of her other novels might be more flat-out enjoyable because they have a smoother narrative flow. I'm not sure that makes a book better or worse. I think that all of her books have some of both kinds of writing.

[klburnside · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Toni Morrison's writing style. I agree with Ann, that it provided an interesting historical perspective of slavery and indentured servitude. I don't think I have ever read a book that dealt with slavery in the United States before it was a well established insitution with so many laws governing people and their rights. It provided an interesting perspective. I also loved all voices of the different characters of the novel.

[maureencean · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Really a 2.5 or a 2.75. My first Morrison, but I have another one or two on my shelves and will continue. I am not a big fan of stories that are tragic every way you look at them. The stream of consciousness was a little hard to follow at times as well. This would be a good book for discussion.

[dchaikin_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

60. A Mercy (Audio) by Toni Morrison read by the author (2008, 6:26, 176 pages in paper format, listened Aug 24 - Sep 2)Rating: 1 starTorture on audio. The book is a wandering mess, made worse on audio. I could go on with a long complaint. I don't think I'll try another of her books on audio.One highlight is that Morrison gives an interview about the book, which is interesting. She tells how she spent six weeks on one small part of the book about dealing with a wild boar, only to later learn that there were no boars in the America's in this era (The book takes place around 1690, mainly on a farm somewhere in current New York state). She replaced the boar with a bear. She also talks about the fluid state and varieties of slavery in this era and place, which she meant to explore. The book is on ten notable books of 2008 lists, so apparently she has some success with this, it just didn't trickle down to me.

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

“America, whatever the danger, how could it possibly be worse?”This may be a short novel, one of Morrison's last ones, but the feeling of disorientation that creeps up on you at the first reading is immediately reminiscent of Faulkner, also because of the American setting. Morrison had used the Faulknerian techniques of twisted perspectives and stream of consciousness before, but here she goes a step further. The result is that you only get a little insight into the story towards the end of the book, which immediately makes a second reading all the more rewarding. Because only then does the layering of this novel really come into its own.The story may be opaque, but the context and themes provided by Morrison are not. The setting is the British colonies in what would later become the United States, at the end of the 17th century, so less than 100 years after their establishment. Morrison knows perfectly how to evoke the harshness and diversity of the inhabitants and the landscapes, at a time when the region still could evolve in all directions, and slavery, for instance, had only just made its appearance. The characters are equally diverse, although the narrative perspectives are mainly those of women. They are also all damaged people, displaced in the broadest sense of the word (the Europeans, the Native Americans, the Afro-Americans), and none of them are all good or all bad.The title betrays the biblical undertone, and this is certainly present in other respects (including references to paradise, and to the suffering of Job). But it is mainly the precarious situation of the women that Morrison highlights, because she lets them do the talking most of the time. This book is by no means an easy read, but it once again demonstrates the power of literature to evoke an inscrutable world and make you think.

[castlelass · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Short, tragic, beautifully written book set in the late 17th century in the American Colonies. It speaks of slavery, indentured servitude, patriarchy, exploitation, superstition, disease, and child mortality. Prominent themes include fear of abandonment, lack of agency, and unintended consequences. The author elucidates the seeds of issues that still have repercussions today.

Morrison focuses this book on an ensemble of characters. Jacob Vaark finds slavery abhorrent but, at the urging of her mother, accepts Florens as partial payment of a debt. She joins Lina, an indentured servant from a native tribe, and Sorrow, a mixed-race orphan that survives a shipwreck, in laboring at the Vaark’s farm. Jacob’s wife, Rebekka, arrives from London as what we would call a mail order bride. Scully and Willard are two male indentured servants whose servitude keeps getting extended by dubious means. A free African blacksmith plays a key role. Through this dream-like narrative, the reader learns the backstories of these characters.

Morrison explores oppression based on gender, race, and class. She shows the heartbreak of mothers unable to protect their children. She writes expressively and packs a great deal into a slim novel. The sense of time and place is vivid. This is my first experience in reading Morrison’s work, and I look forward to reading more from her catalogue. A Mercy is an impressive book that conveys a powerful message in an artistic way.

[tibobi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The blurb from the publisher: In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, “with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady.” Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master’s house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved. There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who’s spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens’ mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness.The Short of It:Read by the author, this is a mesmerizing story of love, betrayal and pain.The Rest of It:I've read a few of Morrison's books and I always have trouble with them. For me, the words lack a certain rhythm and I find myself re-reading pages that I've just read. I never understood the draw. That said, my book group chose A Mercy for October's discussion and I was sort of dreading it and looking forward to it at the same time.For one, it's been years since I've read one of her books. Perhaps I've grown as a reader. Perhaps my experience this time will be different. I promptly went out and got the book, read a chapter or two and then stopped. Nope, still the same. Still haltingly strange for me. So then I ordered the book on audio. It's read by Toni Morrison and I figured that if it didn't strike a chord with me, and she was reading it as it was meant to be heard, then I would give up on Morrison altogether.I'm happy to report that I loved it! Morrison's voice is melodic at times but definitely has a certain cadence to it. That haltingly strange way of speaking that I mentioned in the book form, is present in her speech patterns, but hearing her voice brought it all together for me. I then went back to the book and had no problems reading it. Have you ever done that?After smoothing all this out, I settled into the story and found it to be haunting at times, yet the strength of these women amazed me. There is a wonderful interview with the author at the end of the audio book which should not be missed. Now that I've had this experience, I plan to re-read some of her other books.Have you ever had a hard time reading a famous author and then wondered what all the fuss was about? Have you ever resorted to the audio book to see if it was different in some way?

[bookwyrmm_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very poetic look at a the beginning of America's troubled history.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is dense and rich with many women's voices, which at first made it hard to follow. But Morrison's seamless narration and incredible prose reeled me in and left me reeling after the book was over. In some ways it reminds me of the many voices and mindsets in Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, but it approaches slavery, identity, ownership, love, and betrayal in ways that are timeless and relatable. I cannot stop thinking about this book. I highly recommend the audiobook--Morrison herself reads it.

[kristelh_15 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Story set in the early years of the colonies before they were the United States. It tells the stories of marginalized people mostly women but each of their perspectives. The women are a woman bought to be a bride, a Indian woman slave/servant, a psychologically damaged young girl from a ship, a black slave girl removed from her mother at a very early age. I like Morrison's writing. This is the 2009 Tournament of Books winner and of the Morrison books I've read it is probably my least favorite. It has much of what her other books have, it was just harder to follow. Rating 3.3

[booklove2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Short glimpses of a found family of orphans -- a handful of them.  Gorgeous as only the great Toni Morrison can write.  Since the viewpoints numbered so many, I wouldn't have minded if this book was longer.  Longer!  Each character could have had their own book.  Especially Sorrow's story - living on that ransacked ship was worth more story alone.  The characters were lovely -- and I always appreciate any family of found orphans.  I loved the image of Jacob rising from the sea when he is first introduced in the book.   The last of Morrison's books I read was nine years ago --  loved it (Paradise) and I know I'd have a greater appreciation for the other books I read earlier if I read them again now.  A worthy winner of the Morning News Tournament of Books in 2009 -- though I also really loved the second place book 'City of Refuge' by Tom Piazza.

[barrettlucero · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Poetic and fresh. People would like to compare it to [b:Beloved|6149|Beloved|Toni Morrison|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165555299s/6149.jpg|736076], but it is very different, and not a masterpiece like Beloved, nor does it have the feeling of saga and absolute tragedy that Beloved has. I love the themes of mother-to-daughter and the complexities and pains therein. Goes quickly, is very beautiful to read, has wonderful amounts of history strung throughout.

[oacevedo-792047 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow what a great book! I'm already thinking of re-reading it!

[abshepherd · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book was very difficult to get into and the characters were underdeveloped.

[tam2603 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very sad and utterly depressing read.
I didn't like the structure and complicated narration. It somehow detracted from the force of the story sometimes.