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Mercy Street

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Named a Best Book of the Year by the Washington Post, the New Yorker, and the Boston Globe

"Ms. Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention. Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo."—Janet Maslin, New York Times

The highly praised, "extraordinary" (New York Times Book Review) novel about the disparate lives that intersect at a women's clinic in Boston, by New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh

For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance.

But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door. As the protests intensify, fear creeps into Claudia's days, a humming anxiety she manages with frequent visits to Timmy, an affable pot dealer in the midst of his own existential crisis. At Timmy's, she encounters a random assortment of customers, including Anthony, a lost soul who spends most of his life online, chatting with the mysterious Excelsior11—the screenname of Victor Prine, an anti-abortion crusader who has set his sights on Mercy Street and is ready to risk it all for his beliefs.

Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present. Jennifer Haigh, "an expert natural storyteller with a keen sense of her characters' humanity" (New York Times), has written a groundbreaking novel, a fearless examination of one of the most divisive issues of our time.

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    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2021

      A counselor at Mercy Street, a woman's clinic in Boston, Claudia recognizes how important her work is for her patients. But she's feeling the stress of daily antiabortion protests outside the clinic doors and seeks relief from cheery pot dealer Timmy. Among the other customers she meets is woebegone Anthony, who spends much of his time chatting online with an antiabortion crusader going by the screen name Excelsior11. And now Excelsior11 is targeting Mercy Street. From the New York Times best-selling, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning Haigh; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      December 1, 2021
      Claudia has worked at the Mercy Street clinic in Boston for years. As the daughter of a teen mom, she never knew her father beyond the mysterious force behind the Christmas packages that arrived at their trailer. Now she's learned the specifics of clinic work, like how the hotline is busiest on Mondays with the consequences of the weekend's events. She's nicknamed the one anti-abortion protestor who shows up every day "Puffy," for his down coat. And she hasn't slept through the night since the mandatory training on what to do if a shooter hides in the building. As it is, there's a different type of shooter that will soon concern her, Anthony, who's been photographing women entering the clinic for a man he knows only as Excelsior11 to post online in a Hall of Shame. Victor, the man behind the screen name, immediately becomes obsessed with Claudia and harangues Anthony for more photos. Haigh's multifaceted storytelling deftly weaves a tangled web that includes Claudia's pot dealer, as each character strives to find meaning in his or her life.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Kirkus

      December 15, 2021
      Having addressed fracking in Heat and Light (2016), Haigh now tackles abortion in a polemical novel that revolves around a Boston women's clinic. Divorced and childless, 43-year-old Claudia is an abortion counselor at Mercy Street, a clinic in a gentrified area of Boston once known as the Combat Zone. As the daughter of an impoverished single teenage mother, she well understands "the stark daily realities that made motherhood impossible" for many of her clients. After nine years, Claudia is a pro at taking care of the patients while ignoring the protestors who gather outside the clinic every morning. Still, the stresses of the job get to her (the women with late-term pregnancies "cracked her open"), so periodically Claudia seeks relief from her pot dealer, Timmy. Also dropping in to make a buy is Anthony, a lonely incel living off disability insurance in his mother's basement. Anthony spends his days attending Mass, protesting at Mercy Street, and emailing photos of women going into the clinic to an anti-abortion crusader with the screen name of Excelsior11, who's actually a Vietnam vet and former long-haul trucker named Victor Prine. During the winter of 2015, these four characters, whose social isolation keeps them as frozen as Boston's stormy weather, will find their lives intersecting and transformed, not always for the better. Haigh excels at depicting people beaten down by life, but it's hard to feel much sympathy for her drearily drawn male protagonists, who are less nuanced individuals than indistinguishable stereotypes. With the anti-abortion movement gathering steam in the legislative arena, her portrait feels dated. Despite its flaws, Haigh's novel will provide plenty of discussion fodder for reading groups.

      COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      December 20, 2021
      Haigh (Heat & Light) explores the issue of abortion in this layered if frustrating story of a Boston women’s health clinic. Claudia, a counselor at Mercy Street, struggles with insomnia and anxiety after the death of her difficult mother, as well as because of her daily work with women who are faced with unwanted pregnancies. To cope, she smokes weed. Meanwhile, antiabortion protesters mount a steady campaign outside the clinic, and Haigh delves into their world. Among them is a rabidly antiabortion activist and racist retiree named Victor, who is tangentially connected to Claudia’s dealer and maintains a website where he shames white women who visit Mercy Street. The set up is strong and culminates in Victor deciding to travel to Boston from his log cabin in Pennsylvania to “save” Claudia, but the narrative runs out of steam just as it gets going. Haigh doesn’t successfully weave the different narrative threads, delving into what leads men to become violent antichoice activists, for instance, but leaving the female characters disappointingly unexplored. There are some solid building blocks, but they crumble into an unsatisfying resolution. This doesn’t hit the high marks it aims for. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME.

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