by Toni Morrison
from Knopf
| | | List Price: | $23.95 | | Price: | $14.37 | | You save: | $9.58 (40%) | | | Media: | Hardcover | | Availability: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
|
Editorial ReviewA powerful tragedy distilled into a jewel of a masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier.
In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.
Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.
There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who's spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens' mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness.
A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and of a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.
Acts of mercy may have unforeseen consequences.
Customer Reviews:
- Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
- Best Ever!!!
This is yet the best book that Toni Morrison has ever written. It's so deep that you probably will have to read it at least twice.
I will admit that while reading this book I thought that Toni Morrison was way off her rocker due to the way she writes. In all honesty you will have to read this book from cover to cover to get an full understanding of it.
This is my first time EVER reading her book and actually crying after I understood fully what it was about. I will not go into details, but in this... more info
- A big zero
I never received the book and aparently, alot of others have had the same problem. They have never responded to my email ither. Don't purchase products from them and I hope Amazon removes them from their site.
Pam Mettler
- Why I like Alice Walker so much more.
A friend and I were talking a few months back about Madame Nobel Laureate, Toni, and why we both shake our heads at the dismissal of a truly brave artist such as Alice Walker. So what am I doing on this page other than I couldn't help but give this new, slender novel a read?(--which is exactly what I did over the holidays). My complaint with Toni is her almost obsessive exploration of the slave wound. That's the first thing. Not that I think this subject isn't worthy, it clearly is. But Morrison here is... more info
- Not happy
The story was excellent as the author style came shining through. However the book itself has uneven edges as though it was cut uneven, I have never had a book in this condition. Disappointed with the quality of pages.
Similar Products:
Portions © Amazon.com, Inc. | 
