The Merciful by Jon Sealy almost convinces you that it’s going to be a simple courtroom drama or a whodunnit about a 19-year-old girl killed by a driver who left the scene, yet it’s much more nuanced. You know from the beginning that Daniel Hayward was the driver who unknowingly drove away without fully realizing that he might have hit anyone. You know that Daniel and his wife Francine led what looked like a charmed life until the day he left the scene of the accident. You know all of this because Francine calls Daniel’s old college friend Jay to help him and Jay narrates the novel thus sharing all he learns and observes with the reader. This gives the novel a unique perspective.
As a reader, your questions aren’t about what happened as much as they are about “why?” and “what if?” What if Daniel hadn’t gone out to dinner with a client he found attractive? What if they hadn’t split a bottle of wine? What if he hadn’t answered his phone? About Samantha James who died while riding her bike home from work on a dark road when Daniel hit her, you wonder what she was doing in the hour after she left work and before she got on her bike. You want to know if she could possibly have been negligent.
You have so many questions. You want to know how badly Claire Fields, the thirty-one-year-old prosecutor needs to get a conviction. You wonder about Daniel’s lawyer “a white-haired Charlestonian named Henry Somerville, a man of the old school and old money. A gentleman lawyer with connections to the city’s power brokers.” Will that “alpha wolf” of an attorney attempt to thwart justice? You want to know about “the judge, Kenneth Rhodes, one of only a handful of black judges in South Carolina since Reconstruction.” Jay ponders “When Claire Fields and Henry Somerville built their stories of what happened the night of the hit and run, Judge Rhodes would be the final arbiter, the man with the vision to see beyond the frame of a story and find the Truth.”
You want to know if justice will be served and if that justice will contain mercy. You want to know if it’s possible to find Truth. You wonder if a judge and jury led by attorneys with different agendas can mete out justice for Samantha and still offer mercy to Daniel. You wonder what you’d do if you were the judge. You wonder because Jon Sealy’s novel embeds you into each of the characters so you care about both justice and mercy.
This is a character-driven novel that engages the reader quietly then won’t let go with questions that linger long after the last page turns. Readers, you’ll play your own game of “choose your own adventure” as you place yourself in the lives of each character and ask yourself which path you would have taken. If you’re Francine, will you stand by your man or leave town immediately? If you’re Samantha’s boyfriend, will you wonder if she ever loved you? If you were any of the characters, what choices would you make and would they be merciful? We each make choices every day and the impact of this novel is that it makes us consider their consequences.
One single action, one moment and everything changes. What would you do?
Summing it Up: The Merciful is both a courtroom drama and a literary novel of the south that explores privilege as it asks questions about justice and mercy. Read The Merciful to ponder what you might have done if you’d been the driver in a hit-and-run accident that killed a young woman then consider how you might have acted if you’d had to decide that driver’s fate. The Merciful will force you to contemplate how you might have acted had you been any of the novel’s characters. Book clubs will love discussing this gem.
Rating: 4 Stars
Category: Fiction, Grandma’s Pot Roast, Grits, Mysteries & Thrillers, Book Club
Publication Date: January 21, 2021
Author Website: http://www.jonsealy.com/
What Others are Saying:
The Free Lance-Star https://fredericksburg.com/entertainment/arts/books/book-review-the-merciful-is-a-grim-gripping-literary-thriller/article_c08611f9-7a23-5455-bd8c-672aede4db79.html
Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jon-sealy/the-merciful/
"Jon Sealy's The Merciful is atmospheric and filled with suspense. The suspense is not the cheap kind, though. Instead, it grows right out of the characters' lives, which I found all-absorbing. If asked what writer Sealy most resembles, I'd have to say Russell Banks. If that sounds like high praise, rest assured that's how I intend it. This is a magnificent novel."
—Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World
"The Merciful freezes a moment in time and rotates it like a prism, using all facets to examine the lives of the people involved. More subtly uncomfortable than a thriller, this is a provocative novel from a strong southern voice—no two readers will come away with the same conclusion."
—Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine
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