Mercy

The rich and nuanced story of a moment of fear and abandonment that reverberates across decades and changes the course of many lives, by beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author Joan Silber

In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan experiments with heroin with Eddie, things go horribly wrong. Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, leaves him there.

This one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from “the remorse that never dies.” Ivan’s decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night.

Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Silber’s most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.

Library Journal, A Title to Watch

"Joan Silber’s sweeping yet intimate novel traces the delicate patterns by which others, often from afar and unknowingly, may determine our innermost longings and even our fate. Mercy is a profound, gorgeously written reflection on identity, friendship, and love. A book that keeps echoing long after turning the last page."—Hernan Diaz, author of Trust, winner of the Pulitzer Prize