Award-winning author Alissa York’s first novel is a haunting and masterful exploration of how passions of the spirit and the flesh can overwhelm us, and even come to inhabit the ground beneath our feet. Divided into two parts, Mercy pairs a single year in the past with a single night in the present, as they unfold in the town of Mercy, Manitoba, and in the neighbouring black spruce bog.
In 1948, a dedicated priest named August Day arrives in Mercy to take over from Father Rock, who has passed away. The first service he is to perform in his new church is the marriage of Thomas Rose, the town butcher, to Mathilda Nickels, the orphaned niece of the church housekeeper.
Thomas Rose is a good man who waited years to express his love for Mathilda. And when Mathilda accepted his proposal, he was sure that their life together would bring them both joy, though in truth he knew little about his betrothed. Mathilda has not explored the world beyond the realm of her religious devotion, and approaches her wedding day with a mix of fear and dread. But when her eyes meet those of Father Day at the ceremony, Thomas seems to dissolve beside her and she feels physical passion for the first time in her life. As of that moment, August and Mathilda will only have eyes, and hearts, for each other.
Half a century later, another sort of preacher comes to Mercy—a womanizing widower who wants to develop the black spruce bog on the edge of town and build a religious camp. Reverend Carl Mann is fairly confident of success but worries about the well-publicized protests of a woman known as Bog Mary, who has lived her entire life in the heart of the bog. He heads off to confront her and ends up lost and hurt, but Mary uses her natural remedies and knowledge to heal not only his wounds but his broken spirit.
A dark yet compassionate novel, Mercy rivals the fiction debuts of Anne Michaels, Ann-Marie MacDonald and Gail Anderson-Dargatz. Alissa York brings to life a tale of misguided love and damaged souls with language of incredible clarity and intensity.
“Mercy will likely draw comparisons to two other debut novels of recent years. While it has much in common with Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees and Gail Anderson-Dargatz' The Cure For Death By Lightning -- a rural setting, a backdrop of both religion and violence, a vivid and compelling cast of characters -- Mercy is by far the strongest of the three novels, riskier, more challenging and, ultimately, more rewarding.”
—The Vancouver Sun
“A debut that’s pure magic... [Mercy] is stunning in its emotive power and emotional resonance. York’s prose is taut and finely honed; her themes and the characters and settings that propel them are far-reaching and profound. It’s sensual, full of yearning and longing for the heat of love.”
—The Hamilton Spectator
“Alissa York is perched on the edge of literary big time with the launch of her debut novel. An intelligent and largely riveting story... spectacular.”
—The Winnipeg Free Press
“Alissa York is a writer to be reckoned with.... This is the type of book that makes one marvel. Each and every phrase, no matter how incongruous, creates an unforgettable image, and each and every image, no matter how bizarre, builds this tightly choreographed story to its near-impossible dual climax.”
—The Edmonton Journal
“Mercy is story that lingers with you long after its pages end and will likely garner even more awards and accolades for its author.”
—Calgary Herald
“Past and present circle round in a series of cartwheels that York stage-manages to create an exquisitely rendered novel that is almost painful to read.”
—Quill & Quire
“York is emotionally unflinching, and her writing is sharp-edged and intense. She can depict both beauty and rot with equal felicity…. the novel ultimately ascends to a level of Gothic melodrama that thousands of Fall on Your Knees fans will no doubt adore…. Rewarding … a blinding flash of light, a flare gun in a darkening universe of lost souls.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Bewitching.”
—Chatelaine
“Lean and poetic … potently seductive.”
—Now magazine
Praise for Any Given Power:
"Some events in life — loves, losses, injuries, dark discoveries — enter us by force and linger on as symbols that soothe or plague us in ways we barely understand. York has considered these mysteries and turned them into prose that quietly sings. The best of these stories support the note-by-note song with brilliant structure, hitting body and spirit together."
—The Globe and Mail
"[York's] prose is energetic, muscular and exciting... [she writes about] pain, cruelty, passion and redemption set against a beautifully observed and delicately realized natural world."
—The Canadian Forum
