While touring Auburn, one of Natchez’s splendid mansions, I picked up a booklet entitled The Goat Castle Murder. The idea for New Mercies came from that booklet. Both the real victim and my victim, Amalia Bondurant, were reclusive women, murdered in their mansions in the 1930s, and an elderly neighbor was the primary suspect. Beyond that, the stories diverge, and New Mercies is entirely fiction. Natchez people are gracious to interlopers, and I’m grateful to many Natchezians for sharing their history. Mimi Miller at the Historic Natchez Foundation, Delores Mullins and Janet Minor at the Natchez Library, and Ron Brumfield, general manager of the Natchez Eola Hotel, helped me with local fact and folklore. Clarence and George Eyrich and Patricia Clark, whose family owned the Eola for many years, shared hotel stories. Don Estes supplied information on Civil War firearms. Denver and Carl Mullican explained Southern history and attitudes and gave me the best lines in the book. Philip Atchison researched architectural details.
