Mercy Among the Children
 David Adams Richards
 (Sr. Staff Writer/Reviewer - Carolyn Stearns)
 2001 Arcade Publishing
  ISBN: 1559705868


I belong to a book club in mid-Ontario. We read all winter and talk all summer. Each year we read, among others, a book by a Canadian author. This year our choice was Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards. Often I find myself plodding through many of the books we have chosen, but this time I experienced one of those rare & exciting reads where I could not put the book down. If I am not keen on a book, I am a very poky reader. I read Mercy Among the Children in two days. Easily & happily, even though it was neither an easy nor a happy story.

At the age of 12, Sydney Henderson, in a moment of anger, pushes his friend off the roof of a local church where the two of them were shoveling snow. Looking down on his friend's motionless body, Sydney believes he is dead. He then promises God that if his friend lives he would “never raise his hand or his voice to another soul” & that he would go to church every day. At that moment, his friend stands up &, laughing, walks away.

Hence begins a morality tale with hints of Hardy, Conrad, Dickens & Tolstoy as told by Lyle, the son of Sydney, who was born & raised in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, one of the poorest, bravest, & coldest parts of the world, where this story unfolds.

For the rest of his life, Sydney remains true to his word. Sadly, Lyle & the community, sees his father's pacifist ways as a sign of weakness instead of strength. Lyle watches his whole family suffer with accumulating fury because of his father's pledge.

Lyle makes his father's actions, or lack of actions, his responsibility & works hard to defend & stand up for his family since his father won't, can't. He grows up seeking revenge. Lyle becomes “exactly as those who had hated us. And it had happened without my even trying.” Lyle rejects both God & his father.

Mercy Among the Children is scattered with many tasty tidbits: “All mocking is a form of fear. Those who are most mocked are generally most feared”. “No one can do an injury to you without doing an injury to themselves...Those who scorn you only taunt themselves.” “Learning is worthless to those who have no insight.” “All is madness without love.” As I raced to keep up with the story, I constantly had to remind myself to slow down.

I find it hard to like a book when I don't like the characters. David Adams Richards' characters are all so wonderfully complex that I found myself having empathy for even those who were most cruel, knowing their behavior came from the pain of poverty, from the lives & beliefs they had inherited.

Mercy Among the Children is a great book for book club readers. So many questions present themselves, questions with no right or wrong answers. David Adams Richards writes with compassion, insight, & ease.

I would not say it is a perfect book -- frequently the storyteller, Lyle, tells a story he couldn't possibly have witnessed, & I found that distracting, but not a major worry.

Read! Read! Read!

I happily take all the teapots you will give me.

David Adams Richards is a winner of The Giller Prize, Canada's most prestigious literary award, which he shared with Michael Ondaatje of The English Patient & Anil's Ghost, among others.

More from David Adams Richards: Blood Ties; Nights below Station Street; Coming of Winter; For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down; Lines on the Water: A Fly-Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi; Lives of Short Duration; Road to the Stilt House; The bay of love and sorrows.
(06/30/02)

Carolyn Stearns
2001©Carolyn Stearns
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Staff Writer/Reviewer

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Reviewer's Bio:
Carolyn Stearns is a professional modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, masseuse, hypnotist & writer who began her 39 year dance career as a butterfly in first grade. She received an MS in dance from Smith College & studied with modern dance legends Martha Graham, Hanya Holm & Jose Limon.

As Carolyn Coles, she performed with prominent dance companies including Karamu Dancers & the Jose Limon Dance Company in Philadelphia, taught dance at Smith, Swarthmore & Connecticut Colleges & the University of Maryland. For years she was a dance critic for Choice Magazine.

After she retired from dance, she taught her own bodywork program Stretch and Meditation, gave psychic body readings & grief massages -- out of which came her six Blessing Tree Self-Empowerment audio tapes.

Then she began to write, publishing: Spirit-Walking; Where Did All The Water Go?; Queit Please-Eaglets Growing; The Inheritance. Excerpts of her work have appeared in Reality Change, Fodderwing, The Washington Post, Pilgrimage, The New Bay Times, Chesapeake, earthlight! and Choice Magazine.

She live in Mason's Beach, Maryland & at Weslemkoon Lake, Ontario with her husband, Chris, & her special teachers: a Great Pyrenees dog Jean-Luc & cats Black Angus & Calico Phoebe. They share six children & six grandchildren.

A RebeccasReads author in Authors & Books