A Mercy, Toni Morrison

It’s easy to come to these two conclusions: Toni Morrison hates men. Toni Morrison hates white people. If you read her work with a certain slant, you could probably even support these two rather simplistic hypotheses. (And if you fit into either category, you may even slump away from the text feeling impossibly but inexplicably guilt-ridden.)

But Morrison is simply not that simple. Her works, to be cliché, are like onions. Maybe the world’s biggest onion. Peel one layer away, and then there’s another. And another, and another, and another. Pretty soon you are cringing with every meticulously chosen dagger of a word, but you just can’t stop reading.

I’ll make a little confession before I go on: I listened to this book on CD during my brief stint as a commuting bookseller. But I don’t think it counts as cheating since Morrison’s voice is far more powerful and haunting than the mousy one in my head. Her voice rolls over what can better be described as lyrics than words, singing the parts that are sweet (few) and drumming in the parts that are harrowing (many).

I still contend that Paradise is Morrison's best, but A Mercy is a close contender. (NYT disagrees.) It is told in the Paradise-like fashion, with chapters alternating perspectives in a tightly wound story. Unlike most of her works, which take place in the twentieth century, this one takes place in the early colonial years. Morrison, I think, seems more suited to the 1960s than the 1690s.

But what is most impressive in her rendering of the 1690s is what she does not do. It is a historical era that could easily lend itself to stereotypes and caricatures, and Morrison deftly and masterfully avoids them. Lena, an unfree Native American, is tragically beautiful yet commits deplorable acts. Sorrow, a red-headed floozy, proves a dedicated mother. Jacob Vaark, the man in charge of them all, despises the slave-trade but benefits from it. Florens, the black slave-girl whose story brings them all together, has a dreaming soul and yet is capable of bloody and frivolous sins.

With this cast of complicated characters, Morrison creates a masterpiece and maintains her place as one of America's greatest writers. A Mercy will surely join the ranks of the revered (though probably hotly contested) contemporary classics.