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Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize A rich and nuanced story beginning with a moment of fear and abandonment that will reverberate across decades and change the course of many lives, by a beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author 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 and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave 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 "a 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.
Mercy
$27.00
Book details
- Format
- Hardcover
- Publication date
- September 2, 2025
- ISBN
- 9781640097070
- Publisher
- Counterpoint LLC
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- BISAC
- Fiction, Friendship, Literary, Coming of Age, Historical, 20th Century - General, Family Life, General
- Themes
- Friendship, Coming of Age, 20th Century, Family
- Related subjects
- Drug abuse, Interpersonal relations, Heroin, Remorse, New York (N.Y.), 20th century, Historical fiction, Psychological fiction, Novels, Friendship