Adventures in Reading

“You can think what I tell you a confession, if you like, but one full of curiosities familiar only in dreams and during those moments when a dog’s profile plays in the steam of a kettle.”

Narrated during the late 17th Century, Toni Morrison’s latest novel A Mercy follows the interweaving lives of six characters to deliver the American Dream: a rags to riches story. Exploring the relationships between whites, Native Americans, slaves, indentured servants, etc., all of these characters contribute to the central story line of “Sir” Jacob Vaark an orphan come landowner who aspires to engage and replicate the life of the privileged through investments in slaves and sugar. However, it is Morrison’s tributary stories that give A Mercy its force.

I read A Mercy in one evening and it’s a brilliant book. You can read it for just the intruiging story line but inexplicably themes of race and gender circulate throughout the novel. The four central female characters in particular engage in a complex relationship with themselves, with society, and particularly with love/men. No one writes a book about love like Morrison, who always manages to display this emotion in all of its vivid colors.

Conclusion: Keeper.

Other opinions: Both Eyes Book Blog.