I take great interest in any novel that explores violence, so David Adams Richards's Mercy Among the Children, with all its accolades and set as it is just across the bridge from the island where I live, was a must read.I had high expectations because Mercy Among the Children tied Anil's Ghost (another book about violence) for Canada's Giller Prize, and because everyone I knew who'd read it adored it. By the time I was finished, though, the most I could muster for this book was an "It's okay."And it is okay. It is competently written. The dialogue is competent. The plot is competent. It's a little entertaining. For me, though, the characters are too stock to be believable, and I am not convinced of their authenticity (I live in the rural Maritimes, and I didn't recognize a single character -- apart from the broadest, clunkiest archetypes -- although the characters in Mercy Among the Children might simply have existed before my time. Still, like I said: "too stock"). Moreover, I felt like Richards was pontificating on his theme, and he was saying nothing new. Yeah, yeah, violence is bad; yeah, yeah, rural folk can be violent; yeah, yeah, rural folk can be mean to those who are different; yeah, yeah, it's sad that those who are different have to suffer. It's all been said a million times before and more effectively. I concede, however, that David Adams Richards's handling of the theme works for many, and I see how it does. It's comfortable, familiar, and delivered within the recognized bounds of late 20th and early 21st Century psychology. It toes the line and that makes it inviting.For me, though, it's just okay. It was a nice read. I enjoyed the setting. And I didn't hate the book despite my disappointment (which says a lot). I am running out of things to say. I want to say something nice about Mercy Among the Children before I stop writing, but I can't think of anything beyond "It's okay." Oh well, that will have to do.
I found Sydney's character to be the most loathsome I have ever come across. And I do not say that lightly. For somebody to use the concept of high morals to justify allowing every member of his family to be battered and abused and to do absolutely nothing is completely unrealistic.It is perfectly possible to be a good, moral human being and look after the people you love using these very parameters. Sydney just did not. He was utterly selfish in his supposed drive to be a good person, which I frankly found ridiculous.I also did not believe that EVERYONE could be so consistently and relentlessly vile. I find it far more effective to balance misery with a touch of humor or show the tiniest sign of kindness. For example, Angela's Ashes - where life was equally miserable but ultimately more believable and touching for the rounded story of life it depicted.I will say that David Adams Richards is a fine author with a wonderful turn of phrase. His descriptions are immensely evocative and powerful. It could also be a testimony to his ability that I ended up feeling so intensely passionate about my dislike for this book. A badly written book would simply leave me cold or uninterested.Only one character in the whole book was remotely likeable to me - Jay Beard (and perhaps little Percy). Every single other character was unbelievably cruel and hateful without any sign of humanity. The characters are portrayed in soap opera-like one dimension. That is not life, I hope. That is not real, I hope. I say I did not finish this book because I speed read the last 60 or so pages just to be able to put it down.I would like to read another of this author's books as a comparison, because I did like his way of writing.
What do You think about Mercy Among The Children (2002)?
At the age of twelve, Sidney Henderson, in a moment of anger, pushes his friend Connie Devlin off the roof of a local church. Looking down on Connie’s motionless body, Sidney believes he is dead. Let Connie live and I will never harm another soul, Sidney vows. At that moment, Connie stands up and, laughing, walks away. In the years that follow, the brilliant, self-educated, ever-gentle Sidney keeps his promise, even in the face of the hatred and persecution of his insular, rural community, which sees his pacifism as an opportunity to exploit and abuse him. Sidney’s son Lyle, however, witnessing his family’s suffering with growing resentment and anger, comes to reject both God and his father and assumes an increasingly aggressive stance in defense of his family.With a never-failing elegance and humane moral vision that call to mind Joseph Conrad and Thomas Hardy, David Adams Richards has crafted a magnificent, heartbreaking novel whose towering ambition is matched only by the level of its achievement.
—Candice Holt
Mercy Among the Children is a meaningful, difficult and profound book. I struggled with my rating because I am left with such complicated feelings. The story is Sydney Henderson's as told by his son Lyle. At the age of 12, Sydney pushes his friend off the roof of a church. Sydney makes a quick pact with " God " and the friend stands up and laughs. Sydney, victim of violent abuse at home, becomes ever passive. Never standing up for himself he believes that any hand turned in violence is eventually turned back against the abuser. He lives his life this way and his family appears to pay the price........ This book will stay with me for a very long time.
—Annette
Periodically there are books which come into our lives we choose to read not because they are guarantors of entertainment, escapism, pleasure, but because we are aware the writer has something to say, hopefully says it well, and the scent of which lingers in years to come like a primal memory, an underlying truth.Such is the case with David Adams Richards' Giller Award winning novel, Mercy Among the Children.Told through the unreliable narrator of Lyle Henderson, son of the main protagonist and chief underdog in the story, Sydney Henderson, Mercy Among the Children is an epic tale of hypocrisy and greed, of ignorance and poverty not only of economics but of morality. It is not a pleasant read. Nor is it an easy read. But it is gripping and needs to be read much in the way Steinbeck needs to be read, or Harper Lee, or any number of writers who have championed the cause of the disenfranchised and downtrodden.Set in the Miramichi Valley of New Brunswick, Canada, this labyrinthine tale weaves through betrayals, robberies, murder, toxic waste of the soul and the environment, through generations of people held under the implacable autocracy of the company town. It is relentless in its brutality and sorrow. There are no happy endings in sight. And it resonates with an awful truth which simply cannot be ignored.My only quibble is in the opening third of the novel the relentless barrage of misdeeds against the Henderson family teeters on the brink of the precious, so that at any moment I fully expected Dickens' Tiny Tim to make an appearance. Beyond that, there is a court scene which very much put me in mind of Harper Lee's now legendary court case in To Kill a Mockingbird, and the societal burden Steinbeck presented in The Grapes of WrathA recommended read which should be followed immediately by something mindless, hilarious and utterly frivolous, just for balance.
—Lorina Stephens
