Mercury
A Novel
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4,0 • 60 notes
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- 11,99 $US
Description de l’éditeur
A roofing family’s bonds of loyalty are tested when they uncover a long-hidden secret at the heart of their blue-collar town—from Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed novel Shiner
It’s 1990 and seventeen-year-old Marley West is blazing into the river valley town of Mercury, Pennsylvania. A perpetual loner, she seeks a place at someone’s table and a family of her own. The first thing she sees when she arrives in town is three men standing on a rooftop. Their silhouettes blot out the sun.
The Joseph brothers become Marley’s whole world before she can blink. Soon, she is young wife to one, The One Who Got Away to another, and adopted mother to them all. As their own mother fades away and their roofing business crumbles under the weight of their unwieldy father’s inflated ego, Marley steps in to shepherd these unruly men. Years later, an eerie discovery in the church attic causes old wounds to resurface and suddenly the family’s survival hangs in the balance. With Marley as their light, the Joseph brothers must decide whether they can save the family they’ve always known—or whether together they can build something stronger in its place.
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An aimless young woman joins a family of roofers in 1990 Pennsylvania in Burns's appealing if florid sophomore novel (after Shiner). In the summer before Marley's last year of high school, she catches the eyes of the handsome Joseph brothers, who invite her to dinner. She becomes a regular guest at their rambling Victorian home, where Elise Joseph serves a home-cooked meal nightly to her erratic husband, Mick, and three sons, Baylor, Waylon, and Baby Shay. Eventually, Marley gets pregnant and marries Waylon. In a bid to save enough money to get their own place, she tries to help Waylon bring in more jobs for the family's roofing company, only to discover their finances are in shambles. Burns hits a few wrong notes, such as injecting implausible lyricism into Waylon's perspective (he imagines his father might "burn his whole life to the ground just by chasing his own imagination"). Still, she keeps up the tension with multiple plot twists involving secrets about the town and the Josephs, and she portrays Marley's working-class struggles as a young mother with precision. Once again, Burns delivers a satisfying portrait of life on the margins.
Avis d’utilisateurs
Poor White Folk Have Problems Too (Who Knew?)
What a dreary book about a bunch of sad people. Masochist that I am, I forced myself to read it all the way through. If you don't have your very own dysfunctional family, you might be amazed to see the Josephs keep making the wrong choices, time and again. Been there, done that--and got out.
Burns writes very well--but I doubt I'll read another novel by her.