Mercy

by Joan Silber

The rich and nuanced story of a moment of fear and abandonment that reverberates across decades and changes the course of many lives, by beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Joan Silber

In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan experiments with heroin with Eddie, things go horribly wrong. Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, leaves him there.

This one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from "the remorse that never dies.” Ivan's decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night.

Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Silber’s most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, New York, Historical, Adult

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 2, 2025

About the author

Joan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction. Her book Improvement was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and was listed as one of the year's best books by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The Seattle Times, and Kirkus Reviews. She lives in New York and teaches in the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Keep up with Joan at joansilber.net.

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Where was there ever enough mercy? Nowhere on the planet. No wonder people asked and asked for it.”

In the words of songwriter/singer Mary Gauthier, “Yea, we all could use a little mercy now. I know we don’t deserve it, but we need it anyhow.”

One of my favorite chroniclers, Joan Silber, certainly shares the opinion. Her cast of narrators, who are loosely (and not so loosely) connected. find themselves seeking mercy – or at a minimum, understanding. It all begins with a fateful act of abandonment when Ivan leaves his friend Eddie in a crowded ER after the two of them, and Eddie’s girlfriend Ginger, get in over their heads with heroin. He fully expects Eddie to die and doesn’t want to be fingered. Does Eddie die? That is for readers to discover.

Another pairing, Cara and Nini, also struggle with questions of friendship and meaning in a world where mercy is hard to come by. Cara was in the emergency room at the same time Eddie was brought in by Ivan and abandoned. After witnessing his callousness, she moves forward with the “lasting certainty that I was going to have to look out for myself.” Her friend Nini, a serial “sex warrior”, is an anthropologist who comes to grips with the capricious of life and learns that “there was only so much mercy in the world.”

All of them – including one of Cara’s daughters, Isabel, who works for an environmental advocacy group – seek a nebulous forgiveness that is not easily forthcoming. It’s not enough to want it or even be open to it. Each one must be ready to embark on a hero’s journey of sorts – recognizing how abandonment, betrayal, love-gone-wrong and decisions abruptly or poorly made—shaped who they turned out to be. There are acts of mercy, Joan Silber suggests – if you are ready to recognize and embrace them.

Thank you to BookBrowse and Counterpoint Press for giving me early access in exchange for an honest review. 4.5 stars.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Where was there ever enough mercy? Nowhere on the planet."

My knowledge of this author is that her books generally follow the pattern I found in this one (and I could be wrong as this is the first of hers I've completed).

It is a group of linked stories that begins with a dramatic event for a few characters who are in the first chapter and then goes on to the points of view of several characters touched by that event in their own lives. I felt there was a lot of irony here and kept waiting for and guessing how the original characters would meet again and how the author would finally bring the cast together. A mystery of coincidences that show that regardless of how threads get tangled people never really leave one's life, that even if it is nothing more than memories that keep them alive for us--regardless of their status in the world.

I did use both the audio and the print in the reading (I could not put it down). The audio was so good. The story dragged a little at times and certain character's story seemed a little far removed from the original incident but their story's were still interesting. Recently, I found myself at the library looking at availability of the author's other works. If you have a suggestion on the backlist please leave a comment below.

A bit philosophical but that is the type of book it is. It got me thinking about friendships, the 70's in NYC and how lives come together and diverge. I really enjoyed the reading and will look to try another of Silber's soon. It's easy reading, short and says much.

[Jayne · Rating 1 out of 5]

ATTENTION AUTHORS:
Show "Mercy" for impatient readers!

The book's premise was compelling and ambitious:
"A nuanced story of a moment of fear and abandonment that reverberates across decades and changes the course of many lives".

Yet the book's execution was haphazard and simply did not work for this very, very impatient reader.

The shifting perspectives felt disjointed, the characters never came alive, and the pacing dragged.

What should have been a thoughtful exploration of morality and connection ended up being flat and meandering.

I listened to the audiobook, expertly narrated by L.J. Ganser, Nan McNamara, Christina Moore, Alyssa Bresnahan, Helen Laser, and Nick Walther.

Full-cast narrations are always a treat, and all narrators gave outstanding performances.

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars Thank you to BookBrowse and Counterpoint for a copy of the finished book - which published September 2, 2025.

I thought this book started out well, however I wish it had stayed with the first, or even the second, narrator. It ended up moving between five narrators. And with each I kinda lost the importance of each character. I suppose the connection between characters is remorse. Each one is remorseful over something they did in their past. And while each of the characters know each other in some vague way, their stories are too far removed to have any real meaning in connecting the story.

I did think Silber's writing was easy to read and understand and she did make her characters live on the page. However the plot was too abstract and removed for me to fully enjoy this book.

[Eileen Joyce-Donovan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A series of loosely connected vignettes that begin with two friends and their drug filled lives in New York City. From there, the reader gets introduced to other characters who either were romantically connected to one of them, or only knew they peripherally, if at all.

The novel, as a whole, never came together for me. there was no protagonist whose life the reader followed through the story, no story arc, no character arc.

When one of the introductory characters appears at the end of the book, I had completely forgotten who he was until I started reading his episode. When I did remember, I wondered why the writer had bothered to reintroduce him. He hadn't grown into an interesting person, with goals to achieve - other than stay alive. Not exactly laudatory or interesting.

When I read the acknowledgements, I understood why the vignettes seemed so unrelated and disjointed. It seems certain chapters of the book had already been published as independent short
stories. It's hard to keep a story arc going when the book is a mishmash of short stories.

[Bill Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mercy is called a novel, and these thematically linked stories do share characters and substantial interconnections…but don’t come looking for a conventional singular plot or storyline. Silber is very good at what she does, however, and her distinctive narrative style has its own rewards. These stories (or this novel) touch again and again on the ideas of loss, regret, forgiveness, the inescapability of the consequences of our actions and inactions—and, of course, on mercy, always sought, but only sometimes found. If this all sounds rather sad and bleak, let me reassure you that there is also much lightness and humor here…and love and tenderness despite these characters’ (and our own) individual and collective sorrows and disappointments. I enjoy Silber’s writing, I find it both moving and affecting, and while I could never really identify with these characters, Silber’s empathy and understanding come through loud and clear. Don’t we all need a little more mercy in this world?
(Thank you to Counterpoint Press for a free copy of the novel, won in a Goodreads giveaway.)

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Mercy” by Joan Silber is structured as her other novels have been with each section told from the point of view of a different character, which are all interconnected, some more closely than others. Silber is a master of this technique and all her talents at writing plot, and place, and most especially character, are full on display here in “Mercy”!

[Adam Kynaston · Rating 1 out of 5]

What happened here? This structure seems experimental in nature but comes across as simply incredibly disjointed. Some chapters are interesting (first and last) and the others felt like episodes of Full House or something, where unimportant characters are given the spotlight for a short amount of time, then permanently forgotten. But then when considering the good parts, it is clear the author has talent! It feels like she began with the first and last chapters in mind, and tried her hardest to link them in an interesting way - but then she didn’t really link them and it really wasn’t interesting. This is the definition of a failed attempt.

This isn’t good. I’d love to hear the editor explain why they left this constructed in this way. She’s won awards, I recommend looking up one of those and reading it instead. This novel, although very short, still isn’t worth the investment.

[Cathy O'c · Rating 3 out of 5]

This group of loosely connected stories never grabbed me. I felt the stories were too unconnected with many unsympathetic characters. When I connected with a character they would disappear, possibly to appear in a later story, or not. Drugs were a major theme.

[Shakira Steward · Rating 1 out of 5]

The synopsis was really interesting but once I started reading the book, yeah, this was a no. I understand everyone in this book is connected to the incident with Ivan and Eddie; every action had a reaction. The plot and storylines were not executed well. I was at times wondering "now what in the world does this have to do with that?" I am assuming it is all about the characters either asking for mercy or giving mercy to others but this is going to be a no for me.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's impressive how she got me to care so much about so many characters in such a short novel!

I feel a bit torn about the subject matter being a bit too neatly tied up (as it felt to me, anyway), especially regarding the use of addictive substances, being a little too "and they all lived happily ever after" (some of them, anyway), but I was completely engorssed in the story while reading it and finished it in a single sitting.

[Sarah Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some writers make you feel that you have the chance to understand people at a deeper level than ever seems possible in real life. Grace Paley, for example, and Joan Silber, for another. I’m a huge fan of Joan Silber’s books: brilliant, incisive, but also compassionate, with such a remarkable perspective on the characters and their lives. Mercy, her wonderful newest novel-in-stories, introduces us to so many new people, starting with Ivan, whose betrayal of a friend touches many lives and starts off the book’s journeys. I felt like I got to inhabit the whole lives of Ivan, his friend Eddie, his girlfriend Ginger (really Astrid), and the n a set of other characters entwined with the first characters we meet in surprising and delicious ways. Cara and Nini, who first show up when they’re young, are just wonderful characters (and I don’t want to say more about their roles because for me one of the joys of this book is finding out the connections along the way). I love the way the book embodies as well as depicts mercy, in the mercies the characters offer each other and those they receive. It’s changed how I see the world, and I keep thinking about it.

[Desirae · Rating 2 out of 5]

An Ambitious Tapestry Weighed Down by Moribund Prose and Thin Character Work

Joan Silber's Mercy promises a layered meditation on love, guilt, and the long shadows of consequence, ostensibly set in 1970s New York—a time and place brimming with artistic and political tension. Yet despite its potential, the novel too often feels inert, more sketch than story, more summary than scene.

Silber’s prose, celebrated in past works for its clarity and economy, here slips into something more anemic. The writing is often flattened by its own restraint, moribund in its refusal to spark or surprise. Events unfold in a steady, detached rhythm, robbed of urgency or nuance. Characters think and act, but rarely feel — and when they do, it’s often told to us in drab exposition rather than shown through vivid experience.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the character studies themselves. The cast is large, but most are rendered in broad strokes, their emotional palettes limited to a handful of predictable notes: regret, dissatisfaction, mild longing. These aren’t people so much as mouthpieces for moral reflection. There is little that is messy, contradictory, or deeply human in their portrayals.

The setting — nominally 1970s New York — is disappointingly vague. One might expect the city's grit, energy, and political unrest to bleed into the narrative, but the backdrop remains curiously generic. There are a few dated references, a handful of markers, but the city never lives or breathes. It’s less a living world than a stage for abstract rumination.

And yet, amid the haze, one section glows with life: Astrid’s. An actress whose arc spans from downtown theater to a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a 1930s opium addict, Astrid provides a desperately needed injection of vitality and emotional complexity. Her struggle to balance artistic ambition with personal damage — especially in preparing for a role that mirrors her own history — is the novel’s richest terrain. Silber writes her with a specificity and tension lacking elsewhere, and Astrid’s scenes flirt with the kind of insight and sensory depth the rest of the book lacks.

In the end, Mercy wants to explore the web of human interconnection and the aftershocks of seemingly small decisions. But its muted tone, one-dimensional characters, and bloodless prose undermine the novel’s ambitions. It’s a work that gestures toward depth but too often settles for summary. If not for Astrid, and the brief thrill of her artistic ascent, there’d be little here to remember.

[Sally Horna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Catapult for the free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Have you ever thought about that one person you saw at the store or passed by in the coffee shop? Just a stranger who you never thought about again, but you know they have whole lives, traumas, joys, and heartaches you’ll never know about? That’s what this book is about - those people and what happened to them. It started off fascinating with the drug abuse story line and then lost me a bit but I do think it was lovely storytelling

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should have read the first and last chapters. Everything in between seemed superficial – although connected to previous characters, their stories held little to no interest ... perhaps a drug-induced narrative? Building a novel around three separate chapters previously published lacks the cohesiveness I seek.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t care too much for this book. It started out well, but with 6 chapters all with a different narrator, it just got confusing. They were supposed to be connected, but each one was like a short story.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this so much I emailed the author just to say so ❤️

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

There was some wonderful writing in this book. However I couldn’t take the glib self-hatred and regrets of the protagonist. Sure, one moment in life can haunt you forever BUT the haunting might be precipitated by an imagined event. I liked Ivan in the end because he took his situation seriously and his character developed. I wasn’t enamored by the different perspectives since it was difficult to determine how they figured into the plot. So….2.5 for the beautiful writing

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read my mini-review my HERE.

[Dr Ariel Rainey · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you want to read a rambling disjointed book about people overloading on sex and drugs in 70’s and 80’s here’s your perfect book.

Characters that were awful, doing terrible things… why did this get any recommendations?

[Maddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting with the somewhat innocent question “what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” from a daughter to a father, Silber then dives into the story that father will never actually tell. Each chapter follows a different person in their worst moments, mostly focused on abandonment, fear, regret, absolution, and how events of our pasts shape our lives in small and large ways. Each chapter builds on a loosely connected person from the prior chapter’s life, creating a web of connected stories that is pretty much always a successful structure for me. Fantastic writing and building upon her themes from the different angles of these characters. Loved it!

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book for short story lovers more than a novel. Two friends, Ivan and Eddie, are doing drugs along with Ivan's girlfriend Ginger. Ivan overdoses so Eddie takes him to the hospital but leaves him there because he thinks the cops might question him. If the story had just kept these three people and continued the story it would have been better. More people were introduced and there the story got bogged down.

[Dara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silber’s universe is populated mostly by decent, flawed (that is, human) characters who stumble in and out of each other’s lives (and sometimes beds) trying to create a little goodness and beauty or, at the very least, some connection. New York of the 1970s and 80s, depicted grittily and with affection, is the perfect backdrop for these intersecting stories. For all the romantic entanglements, it’s the friendships (between Cara and Nini and Eddie and Ivan) that are particularly resonant.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though clocking just over 250 pages, this book takes after Olive Kitteridge in how the POVs change but throughout we’re really listening to a wide cast dictate the story of Eddie & Ivan, following one tragic evening in NYC. Each character lends their opinion to what it means to find or have mercy as they get farther away from the night that changed everything.

[Bookreporter.com Historical Fiction · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given Joan Silber's impressive resume, I'm surprised that it's taken me this long to pick up one of her novels. MERCY, her 10th, is a mature, sophisticated and thoughtful work that certainly will prompt me to seek out some of her previous books.

The novel is structured almost as a series of long short stories, which perhaps is not surprising given that several of the chapters have been published in magazines like The New Yorker and ZYZZYVA. Each one can be read and appreciated independently as the portrait of one or more characters, and it's astonishing to witness the level of character development Silber constructs given that (in most cases) she has only about 40 pages to introduce readers to a character and tell his or her story, which often unfolds over decades. However, MERCY decidedly isn't a short story collection as the characters' stories overlap, sometimes in surprising ways, and the novel comes full circle with its final chapter, in a manner that is both satisfying and unexpected.

Everything spirals out from the opening chapter, from the point of view of Ivan. He's a middle-aged dad, narrating a tale from his "wayward youth" to himself after his college-aged daughter inquires about the worst thing he's ever done (he lies to her but tells us the truth). We are taken back to Ivan's younger days, in the 1970s, and more specifically to his close friendship with Eddie, a relationship built largely on their shared attraction to drugs. At one pivotal moment, though, Ivan abandons Eddie --- who has just overdosed --- in a New York City emergency room, out of fear that if Eddie dies, he will be penalized for his involvement. Over the decades that follow, Ivan continues to be haunted by this rash decision, and by his lack of knowledge about what happened to Eddie, who he presumes is dead.

Readers are then taken from Ivan's story to that of Astrid, Eddie's girlfriend, who was known as Ginger at the time and was at the scene on that terrible night. Although she eventually becomes a successful actress and goes on to experience a series of other romantic relationships, she considers her relationship with Eddie to be foundational. Like Ivan, she remains unable to forget him.

But the impact of that one night goes far outside Eddie's inner circle. Silber explores the later lives of two young girls who were also emergency room patients that evening, exploring their changing friendship over decades and the ways in which the youthful dreams they held back then do or do not come true. Only in the book’s final section do readers come to know what really happened to Eddie.

MERCY is a quiet and expansive novel, traveling far beyond that NYC hospital and across decades and generations, but always keeping people and relationships front and center. Throughout, Silber revisits changing mores about sexuality and substance use through the stories and lives of her multifaceted characters.

Reviewed by Norah Piehl

[John Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Copy courtesy of bookbrowse.com

Joan Silber’s novel, Mercy, has six short stories that follow people connected by friendship, family, and, in one case, happenstance, over the ensuing years and generations of their lives.
Ivan and Eddie are friends in 1970s New York. Following a trip to London and Amsterdam, they return to the city with a serious drug habit. One night, Eddie becomes comatose following a heroin overdose and is taken by Ivan, also high on heroin, to the ER. Ivan is afraid he may run into trouble arising from either the possession or use of heroin, so he leaves the unconscious Eddie on his own in the ER. After a few days of receiving no response from Eddie’s phone, Ivan is convinced Eddie is dead, and for the rest of his life is haunted by self-blame at the memory of deserting his then best friend, Eddie, in the ER that night.

Ginger, whose proper name we learn is Astrid, was Eddie’s girlfriend. When she didn’t hear from him, she believed he had decided, without any farewells, to leave her. She continues with her acting and modelling gigs, eventually moving to Hollywood and building a successful career in movies and TV.

Ten-year-old Cara slips and fractures her tibia while dancing outside on a fire escape in the snow for the benefit of her friend and adjacent neighbor, Nini. Waiting in the emergency room at the same hospital, Ivan and Eddie were seated next to her. She noticed Ivan first settle Eddie in a chair, then leave, and doesn’t return.

Nini becomes an anthropologist, traveling to Thailand for research, before crossing paths with Cara one Christmas in NYC.

Isabel engages with her Mother, Cara, regarding Cara’s plans to visit her father, Isabel’s grandfather, in Mali, where he is terminally ill.

Eddie, who didn’t die in the ER, eventually moves to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, living there for 20 years before returning to New York.

These loosely connected stories bring to mind people who were, at some point in our own lives, friends from way back, acquaintances, former colleagues, and the remote, or sometimes close, family members, all separated from us by time, distance, lifestyle, all three, or more. When we do meet, whether by design or by chance, we are in the moment, that moment. We may speak with them, perhaps, of past times and interests, current achievements, or problems, mutual friends even. But once that meeting has passed, we each return to the demands of our day-to-day, sometimes humdrum lives. Our plans and concerns, hopes and fears, and the people we are close to in our daily lives, while that meeting with a distant connection soon fades into our memory.

In Mercy, Joan Silber’s eloquent prose tells the story of each of the six characters from their own POV, showing where each of them is in their lives and the journey they have taken to arrive. A journey not only related to past connections, but also to whatever life events they may have experienced. Their loves, losses, careers, and travels, as well as the lessons they may have learned along the way. Mercy is a well-conceived, totally absorbing, brilliantly contrived compilation of six stories told in the different voices of each leading character.

[Jenny Yates · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel begins strongly, and it answers some basic questions in the last chapter. In between, it has trouble finding its footing.

It starts in the 70s, in New York City. Two young men, Ivan and Eddie, are living a relaxed, cool, no-ambition, no-stress lifestyle, which involves a lot of drugs. They’ve just gotten back from a stay in Europe where they were pretty much doing the same thing. Eddie is friendly and better at scoring drugs, while Ivan is a more serious heroin addict.

On the night in question, they’re accompanied by Eddie’s girlfriend, Ginger, who is relatively new to drugs. But it’s Eddie who passes out. Ivan drags him to the hospital but then abandons him in the waiting room, thinking that he’s died. After this, he runs from his own life, never telling anyone about the night he left his best friend behind.

The next chapter follows Ginger through her life, as she establishes herself as a successful actress. In subsequent chapters, we meet other people - a little girl who was also in the hospital waiting room, her best friend, and her daughter. They never really have anything to do with Eddie, Ivan or Ginger. They have interesting lives, but it can all feel a little disconnected.

Joan Silber is a good writer, and she does a good job describing how people are shaped by their times, by the cities they live in, and by the people around them. They all get into troubling situations occasionally, and they all commit sins against the ones they love. Sometimes (not always) they find pockets of mercy.

[Carolyn Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll give it 3.5 stars. I may change that as times goes by. I can honestly say that I understand why some people gave it 1 or 2 stars and some others gave it 5 stars. I'm not fond of books that are gimmicky. This one starts off about 3 young people in the East Village in NY in the 1970s. Something traumatic happens. The blurb makes it seem like this event will affect the lives of everyone in the book for the rest of their lives. But the book actually has 6 stories in it, each told by a different person. Are they giving us 6 different versions of the same events? No. In fact, some of the people don't know anything about that day, or maybe heard one sentence about it. You're really getting a snapshot of the lives of six different people and most of the time you have no idea why. I still don't know. So the author could enjoy herself? It would have been so much better if she'd stuck with those three people. When you have six different life stories, you have so many names thrown at you that two stories later you really don't remember the people in the previous stories, other than the main character of that section. If there's any theme, I guess it's that everyone in the book makes many, many mistakes and poor choices, and that everyone of us needs a lot of mercy. That's a great theme. If only we'd had a chance to really know and love the first three people and see how that day affected their lives years later. As it was, half of the book was about people we have no reason to care about.

[Anne Marie]

Joan Silber’s Mercy takes as its pivot point a dramatic moment: a young addict is dropped off at a hospital emergency room and left alone. From there, Silber builds a web of stories tracing how people connected to him (even marginally) react to this small incident. The premise had potential, one that could have explored moral responsibility, the randomness of connection, and the ripple effects of tragedy.

Unfortunately, the novel never delivers on that potential. Many of the characters are only loosely tied to the central event, and their stories feel distant rather than urgent. Silber’s strength has always been in weaving together multiple perspectives, but here the strands remain too thin, leaving the reader detached rather than drawn in. While the prose is clean and the shifts in viewpoint are handled with craft, the lack of depth in character development makes it hard to care about what happens to any of them.

In the end, Mercy feels more like a sketch than a fully realized novel. Its premise is too light to sustain meaningful engagement, and the emotional resonance never lands.

[The Next · Rating 4 out of 5]

www.thenextgoodbook.com

What’s it about?

This novel is made up of a series of interconnected stories. The book opens in the early 1970s. Eddie and Ivan are the best of friends. Their relationship is based on a mutual desire to push boundaries. When Eddie overdoses on heroin one night in New York, Ivan gets him to the emergency room and then chooses to leave him. This decision will haunt many characters that we meet in the pages of this book.

What did it make me think about?

Love, regret, and mercy.

Should I read it?

I have never read anything by Joan Silber, but I am a big fan of interconnected stories. This was a beautiful little book. More thoughtful than action-packed. She demonstrates how this one incident had a ripple effect on these characters, which was an interesting idea. Similar to throwing a pebble into the water and watching how it redistributes. If you like contemplative books, then you will enjoy this novel.

Quote-

“He thought about the degree of luck he’d had. In the glories of his reckless youth, no epidemic like AIDS had ravaged the users of IV drugs. What a world they’d occupied, callous and innocent.”