<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Mercy Among the Children</TitleText> <Subtitle>A Novel</Subtitle>

Arcade Publishing 20100209 eng

GCDS-9781559705868 03 01 Arcade Publishing 01 GCOI 55970100838580 02 1559705868 03 9781559705868 15 9781559705868 BB <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>Mercy Among the Children</TitleText> <Subtitle>A Novel</Subtitle> 1 A01 David Adams Richards David Adams Richards has won numerous awards for his fiction and nonfiction. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Peggy, and their two sons, John Thomas and Anton. 01 eng 384 01 At the age of twelve, Sidney Henderson, in a moment of anger, pushes his friend Connie Devlin off the roof of a local church. Looking down on Connie's motionless body, Sidney believes he is dead. Let Connie live and I will never harm another soul,Sidney vows. At that moment, Connie stands up and, laughing, walks away. In the years that follow, the brilliant, self-educated, ever-gentle Sidney keeps his promise, even in the face of the hatred and persecution of his insular, rural community, which sees his pacifism as an opportunity to exploit and abuse him. Sidney's son Lyle, however, witnessing his family's suffering with growing resentment and anger, comes to reject both God and his father and assumes an increasingly aggressive stance in defense of his family. When a small boy is killed in a tragic accident and Sidney is blamed, Lyle takes matters into his own, violent hands in an effort to protect the only people he loves: his beautiful and fragile mother, Elly; his gifted sister, Autumn; and his innocent, beatific brother, Percy. In the end, no one but Lyle can determine the legacy his family's tragedy will hold.Written with abiding compassion and profound wisdom, and imbued with a luminous grace that is as haunting as it is precisely controlled, Mercy Among the Childrenis epic storytelling at its absolute finest, populated with richly drawn characters who walk off the pages and into history. With a never-failing elegance and humane moral vision that call to mind Joseph Conrad and Thomas Hardy, David Adams Richards has crafted a magnificent, heartbreaking novel whose towering ambition is matched only by the level of its achievement.In January 2002, Mercy Among the Childrenwas given the Editors' Choice award by The Atlantic Monthly.It is also the winner of Canada's Giller Prize. 02 An enormous bestseller in Canada and winner of the prestigious Giller Prize, Mercy Among the Childrenis the epic story of a man's pact with God and its far-reaching impact on his family's destiny. 08 The unique style, the humor, and narrative drive of Mercy Among the Children carry you along to a magnificent conclusion that is somehow both heartbreaking and uplifting. Wayne Johnson Author of The Colony of Unrequited Dreams 08 One of the great novels of our time. Alistair Macleod author of No Great Mischiefand Island 08 Not since Thomas Hardy has an author burned characters in a furnace of such moral intensity. There's light here for anyone who can stand the considerable heat he generates. . . . Richards constructs a profoundly moving tragedy. . . . Told with racing suspense and a style that swings between gritty realism and Old Testament myth, Mercy Among the Childrenis a bitter antidote to the proud slogans of war between neighbors or nations. Here is the reason to read fiction. Ron Charles The Christian Science Monitor 08 If you think this sounds like Dostoevsky filtered through Hardy and early D.H. Lawrence, you're not far afield. The best confrontational moments here achieve genuine drama, and the large cast accommodates several vividly drawn eccentrics and malcontents. Kirkus Reviews 08 Richards should win new readers with this stark and affecting novel. . . . Richards shows how powerfully the novel can operate as a mode of moral exploration. Publishers Weekly 08 Richards' characters are well drawn, and his intricate plot is compelling. Linda Zeilstra Booklist 08 Richards is a painfully sharp observer, who possesses one of the most distinct and compelling voices in contemporary literature. In its depth of feeling and fierce drive, Mercy Among the Childrenmakes even the best of contemporary novels seem forced and pallid. Philip Marchand Toronto Star 08 Mercy Among the Childrenis truly a great book, a grand achievement, a masterpiece. Ray Robertson Quill and Quire 08 A cross between Thomas Hardy and Russell Banks . . . Literary fashions be damned; here is a fictional universe, fiercely imagined and brilliantly rendered. Charles Foran Globe and Mail 08 David Adams Richards soars in his new novel . . . What other novelist writes in a prose style of such knobby, uncanny, almost offhand strength? And who else can so catch the pettiness and misery of the criminal mind, or the melancholy of a child's longing for an absent parent, or the beauty and loneliness of the search for moral truth? Mercy Among the Childrenis a masterpiece. John Bemrose Maclean's 08 It's his voice, really, which mesmerizes. Few writers have so distinct an ululation, so hypnotic a cry, so intoxicating a lament. When David Adams Richards writes, narration fuses with incantation. Lynn Coady Vancouver Sun 08 Richards writes with such heartbreaking courage that we cannot help but feel ennobled by the poise of his vision. Edmonton Journal 08 [A] century from now readers will discover in Richards' novels and short stories the same heartbreaking treasures we find in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Kitchener-Waterloo Record 08 Richards joins a tradition that includes Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence and Alistair MacLeod. Like them, Richards is a regional writer, but not in a limiting sense; circumscription of place concentrates and clarifies the universal issues of motive and moral responsibility. Richards's prose is assured, fast-moving and unobtrusively poetic. His characters are memorable and the book is punctuated by vividly sketched scenes. Mercy Among the Childrencombines the gravitas and high philosophical purpose of Hesse or Dostoevsky with the camp over-determination of detective fiction and the crowd-pleasing homilies of Erin Brockovich. TLS 08 This throat-gripping novel by David Adams Richards displays an almost Faulknerian excess. . . . He conveys his moral vision so fiercely, and he addresses the question of how one should live with such urgent seriousness, that he simply sweeps away all objections. Read twenty pages and you'll surrender to Mercy Among the Children--and to its language. I suspect that Richards kept Tolstoy in his pocket--especially the later Tolstoy--when he wrote this dark parable about the rewards of goodness and the wages of sin. Michael Dirda The Atlantic Monthly 08 Wonderfully told, this is a book that is redolent of E. Annie Proulx in its elegiac narrative, while achieving a depth of touch that feels truthful, individual and glorious. As the plot twists towards resolution, it becomes clear Richards has worked a tale of consummate morality and pathos. Scotland on Sunday 08 An incomparable voyage into humanity's flawed heart. The Scotsman 08 I hope this award-winning author from north of the boarder will keep on writing because he shows promise of joining the pantheon of Canadian authors like Mordecai Richler and Robertson Davies. . . . Mercy Among the Children is a book that immerses the reader in the craziness of rural Canada, much in the manner of Davies, but in the character of Sidney Henderson. There are also echoes of Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Dave Wood Star-Observer(Minneapolis) 08 A harrowing and powerful novel - recommended. Barbara Love Library Journal 08 Richards has constructed a profoundly moving tragedy about the smoldering rage of poverty and the extraordinary cost of principled peace. The Christian Science Monitor 08 Richards's novel, which won the Giller Prize in Canada, glitters with prose that evokes the beauty and harshness of the Maritimes. Mercy Among the Childrenis a contemporary masterpiece that, in the tradition of Tolstoy, Camus and Melville, reminds us that redemption is to be found in the suffering of innocents and that revenge ultimately is an empty act that can never satisfy the human craving for retribution. Henry L. Carrigan Jr. The Washington Post 08 David Adams Richards' superb novel of a man whose pacifism provides him with a moral compass yet eventually leads him into danger won the Giller Prize for the best Canadian novel of 2000. The Dallas Morning News 08 Absolutely brilliant. Smokey Mountain News 04 02 72 01 http://www.arcadepub.com/resources/titles/55970100838580/images/55970100838580L.gif 07 02 72 01 http://www.arcadepub.com/resources/titles/55970100838580/images/55970100838580S.gif http://www.arcadepub.com/book/?GCOI=55970100838580 01 Arcade Publishing http://www.arcadepub.com US 04 20011001 Arcade Publishing 01 IP 01 24.95 USD