Works of Mercy

by Sally Thomas

Kirsty Sain, aging housekeeper for the newly arrived young priest, assumes that despite this personnel change in her rural parish, her own solitary rounds will proceed as always. She will go to Mass, clean the rectory, go home again. She will keep herself to herself in the safely-hedged present and coexist in detente with the past. When a hairless, eyeless kitten is thrust upon her, an unlikely deterrent to the mice invading her house, she declares, “I am not going to love that thing.” She has spent a lifetime armoring herself against the risks of affection. But between the hapless Father Schuyler, who teeters on the edge of breakdown, and the crises of the Malkins, a parish family whose cheerful chaos erupts in tragedy, Kirsty finds her own wounds broken open. Drawn against her will into the sufferings of these vulnerable lives, she returns to an old hero, the Elizabethan poet-priest Robert Southwell, whose “Mary Magdalen’s Funeral Tears” provides a skeleton key to her own locked heart. In Southwell’s words, “love is the fire” that renders all things new.

Genres: Fiction, Christian, Book Club, Novels, Historical Fiction, Catholic

264 pages, Paperback

Published August 9, 2022

Reviews

[Gina Dalfonzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review forthcoming. For now I'll just say, get this novel IMMEDIATELY. It's beautiful and brilliant.

Update: Full review here: https://dearstrangethings.substack.co...

[Haley Baumeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel will be one of my favorites this year.

Thomas has a perception that captures the ordinary, complicated heartbreak and the subtle, particular goodness of things.

"Sorrow is the sister of mercy, and the maker of compassion" we hear more than once. And indeed, this is a story of sorrow, of our capacity for motherliness, of the risk of entering others' grief... and thereby finding mercy for our own.

The last few pages stunned me with their forcefully quiet beauty.

[T.]

My review here:

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/cult...

[Elizabeth]

Must let this one rest in my heart for a while before I write more, but I can whole-heartedly recommend it.

[Marcy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this book an extra star, I absolutely would.

It took me a bit to get through, but that is no statement on its quality or readability. Like many physical books, I put them at my bedside for bedside reading and this one fell prey for a bit to my inability to read more than a paragraph or two before dropping off to sleep each night. So once the Christmas break and business of the season finally was over I gave it much more full attention and pulled it out of the bedside limbo.

This book surprised me over and over. It was delightful and funny, the writing was exquisite in its accuracy and beauty, it broke my heart over and over. Kirsty Sain and her misfit cat will live forever in my imagination. I have nothing but love for this book.

Sally Thomas is a master of the craft.

[Vanessa Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am hoping to read more fiction this year and this was a wonderful book to start the year with!

[Jenny Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did really enjoy it, though it was hard for me to get into it. Then it took off at the end and didn’t really end with a complete conclusion. I could tell though that I was in the hands of a gifted storyteller. I appreciated the repeated messages/themes/quotes throughout, which really tied everything together. I’m not a huge fan of bouncing around timelines/flashback memories but I was never really lost. It allowed the reader to slowly get to know Miss Kirsty. Reminded me of the style of Remains of the Day. I really look forward to discussing this book!

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s only January and in this book I’ve already read one of my favorite books of 2024. I can’t stop thinking about the characters, about the workings of God’s grace, about mercies given and received. This is a wonderful book.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent.

[Makenna Karnosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

So so beautifully written— I’d like to re-read this when I’m not blinded by third trimester hormones, which made this a hard read for me in this season!

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a minute to get into it. But because it was so elegantly written, I continued, and by the end, I had a hard time putting it down! And I thought it had a great ending - the type where it feels like everything important has been said and you can leave the story without feeling like it should've continued. Although Miss Kirsty's story is done, I want more stories from Sally Thomas!

[Brianna Bratrud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given to me by my sister Kirstie who is a lovely spiritual mother to her godchildren.

What a treasure is Sally Thomas. Like a dear friend and writer says in her review (please GO read: https://www.plough.com/en/topics/cult... ), Thomas and Sigrid Undset both stand out as strong Catholic writers who have deeply contemplated the meaning of motherhood and the woman’s soul. Can’t convey how excited and thankful I am for that, and I’ll keep coming back to drink from this deep well. “Works of Mercy” and Sally Thomas’s Motherland poems (also given to me by my sister Kirstie some years ago!) deeply comprehend something of my own griefs and joys and hardness of heart and longing for my own salvation and for the salvation of all my children.
If you haven’t read Sally Thomas yet, please go do it.

Also, this book would be great for contemplating poetic knowledge and the awakening of Eros in the education of the soul toward virtue.

[Rhonda Ortiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The kind of literary fiction I like: philosophic and beautifully written, yet also unpretentious, with recognizable characters and a recognizable world. (Especially for us American Catholics.) No mid-century grotesques here: even the church cleaning lady has a story, and Thomas tells it straight.

[Jeff Zell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Works of Mercy is a Catholic and a catholic novel. The capital C is because the main character, Kirsty Sain, is Roman Catholic, cleans the rectory every Monday, participates in daily Mass, and her spiritual and social life revolves around her parish. The lower-case c is because any Christian will recognize many aspects of their own faith community in this novel. The story Kirsty Sain tells has universal appeal. Kirsty describes how God, without naming him as such, worked His mercy upon her and how, despite her efforts otherwise, she became an agent or worker of God’s mercy upon those around her.

We first meet Kirsty as an older person. She is a childless widow of comfortable means who cleans the rectory every Monday. She is aloof, content with being alone, and has no close friends. Kirsty tells her story in the first person. The novel begins with her initial encounters with the new, very young, inexperienced, socially awkward, introverted priest in the rectory, confessional, and Mass. The story goes outward into her bumbling friendship with the Malik family and backward in time to her origins in the Shetland Islands, the affair with her university tutor, the child that died in her womb, meeting the man that became her husband and their life together in North Carolina.

Sally Thomas is a remarkable and subtle storyteller. Part of the charm of reading this book is observing how Kirsty is herself often oblivious to God working within and through her. Kirsty does participate in daily mass and is aware of her sinfulness and of God’s deposit of grace and forgiveness through the sacraments, but she is unaware of how she is nudged into the unfamiliar position of being a worker of mercy. Kirsty is not a “holy” woman. We know this because we are privy to her thoughts, perceptions, and judgments. She tells us why she says and does what she does. Yet, despite her selfishness, God works in and through her. And, despite herself, she loves and is loved.

In the last third of the novel, two passages from First Corinthians 13 came to mind regularly. First, verse 7 “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” Kirsty does not easily accept or give love, but it is present, and it keeps growing. Verses 11-13 resonate because we witness her spiritual development. “11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

I became aware of Sally Thomas through her and Joseph Bottom’s substack Poems Ancient and Modern ( https://poemsancientandmodern.substac... ). Ms. Thomas is a poet and explains her poetry choices lucidly. Kirsty is blessed with a lifelong affection for the English Roman Catholic Priest Robert Southwell who was arrested, tortured, and martyred for promoting the Roman Catholic faith during the Elizabethan Era. Kirsty returns regularly to Southwell’s poetry for reflection and comfort. Ms. Thomas provides an excellent example how a literary work experienced while young is interwoven into the tapestry of a life.

[Gabriela Probst · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no expectations and no preconceptions going into this, other than that it was suggested summer reading for Well Read Mom.
I loved it. How absolutely refreshing to read a book about Catholicism that didn't demonize, minimize, or otherwise make fun of the faith. So many relatable things here, like the bilingual Mass, the awkward priest, RCIA, our Lady of Guadalupe processions, sacramentals and Sacraments.
Kirsty is a lovely character; outwardly prickly, but only because she was hiding so much pain. Still, she allowed her heart to open up to people in need, Wylie, the Malkins, Father Schuyler, even the kitten (obviously not a person, but still in need).
My heart ached for the Malkin family. I also felt for Father Schuyler; a priest called to parish life despite the struggle it posed for him. I've definitely known priests like this and it gave a new appreciation for those struggling with that particular vocation.
The book provides finely drawn characters in a small North Carolina town, also relatable to me as a southern Catholic, epitomized by the hilarious joke about the 'Latin' sign.
The ending was abrupt and left me wanting more. What will happen to all of these poor broken people? But I guess sometimes life is like that; we don't know what will happen to the people we encounter and are moved by.
We can only hope and pray for them.

[Abraham Allende · Rating 4 out of 5]

I told a friend of my desire to read more fiction as I begin my second retirement, and he recommended "Works of Mercy."
Although it took me a while to get into it, by about the third chapter, I couldn't put it down. Sally Thomas' style is reminiscent of Marilynne Robinson as she weaves scripture, literature, and liturgical references throughout the story.
Although the characters in the novel are an odd lot, they are credible. The story is told in the first person by Kirsty Sain, a native of the Shetland Islands, who came to North Carolina as a young bride and now finds herself aging, widowed, and alone in a small town.
She is a housekeeper for the young, introverted, and inexperienced parish priest. As the book progresses, she is unwittingly entwined into the lives of a large dysfunctional family, becomes the owner of a blind cat, and her once lonely life is caught up in the somewhat chaotic drama of these disordered characters.
The story shifts back and forth from the present day to Kirsty's life in the Shetlands, which provides a sad backdrop of unfulfilled dreams that have molded her now rather stoic, detached, personality which she struggles to maintain.
I would have given it five stars, but the abrupt, rather incomplete ending has left me begging for a sequel. It was a unique character study, however. Glad to have read it.

[Deirdre · Rating 4 out of 5]

How did I even find this book?? It was perhaps a Goodreads algorithm doing me a favour for once?

What a dark horse, though! I didn't expect a book published in 2022 to be so...this way. But I was pleased: How many books do you get to read with grouchy old women as protagonists? Me, not enough.

And apparently I don't read enough Catholic books, either, haha. This one is Catholic not in a preachy or condescending or superior sort of way. It just is. Lots about ''mixed marriages'' and the mysterious grace of God and loneliness and the foibles of parish and priest. It is also, on the whole, a very sad book that manages not to be hopeless. It is also not trite or shallow despite the unremarkable and even (sometimes) tropey events that take place.

I like it because the protagonist is so unabashedly human - she is grouchy and inconsistent and bitter, but also as faithful as she can be, wounded that she is. The writing is quiet and understated, extremely effective - the kind of writing you know is good because you didn't notice it being bad, if you know what I mean. It does its job and gets out of the way showing you who everyone is.

If this book had a colour it would be a dark gray that is almost green. Or a dark green that is almost gray ;)

[Cheryl Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a page turner--not at first--but the writing is elegant and clear, and I love the narrator. Kirsty Sain is a widow who has lived all her adult life in a small town in North Carolina, but she was raised in the Shetland Islands and is ever an outsider, in her own mind and in the minds of those around her. She is different, and she observes the folks around her more than she engages with them. Until she has to. A once lapsed and now devout Catholic, she cleans the rectory every week and so gets to know the priest who serves the parish from a uniquely intimate perspective. Although she has insulated herself from love and even friendship (in flashbacks to her youth in Scotland, you see where this comes from), there are people who come to care about her and intrude on her solitude in ways that annoy her and nevertheless touch her and forge connections. A blind and hairless kitten, a young and incompetent priest, and a large, messy, and needful family impose on her conscience in ways that draw her out of the secure shell she has built over a lifetime. Their tragedies draw out the grief of her own tragedies in ways that are good for her soul and that allow her to be wisdom and strength for them. I don't think you have to be Catholic to find her journey fascinating.

[Emmanuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an American author said, there are only two kinds of fiction: great stories about small things, and small stories about great things. This novel falls into the second category.

It's the classical trope of a sour old person meeting people younger than them and learning about love and charity towards others. Now, what makes this story special? Everything: the characters, the settings, the Christian themes, the journey itself. There's a lot about resentment, sin, and how people change or do not, but the central question is how to move from spiritual sloth (acedia, which is where Kirsty began) to the love of God through "works of mercy". Well, there is the name of the book.

For me, it deserves to be called one of the all-time best. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of Stoner, but I genuinely think Works of Mercy has surpassed it, as non-Christian works stand no chance before true Christian art.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Do you think it will go away if you don’t talk about it?”

“We were all being changed, every minute, without our noticing it.”

“Sorrow is the sister of mercy and the maker of compassion.”
—Robert Southwell (1561-1595)

“‘In fact [grief] is ordinary, in that it happens to all of us at some time or another. We are all, at some point in our lives, obliterated by loss. If you haven’t been by now, you will be in time—that’s for sure. And, of course, if you have been fortunate enough to have been truly loved, in this world, you will also cause extraordinary pain to others when you leave it. That’s the covenant of life and death, and the terrible beauty of grief.’ —N. Cave. In practicing the works of mercy, we see Christ in the least of our brethren, and we look upon them with His eyes and with His love. But we are also afforded an opportunity for gratitude, to say, ‘There, but for the grace of God go I.’ Living a life of mercy means encountering the ‘least of these’ in all of their particularity—and recognizing them in ourselves, too.”
—Abigail Wilkinson Miller

[Ari's library · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐

This rating does not reflect the quality of this book but merely how I felt about it.

This is a very good book and Sally Thomas is obviously a gifted storyteller. But I did not like it one bit.

I feel quite awkward about it because it was a catholic fiction, and it had a lot of profound elements but...I really did not like it. Some details offended my more prudish side, and I may lack the subtelty necessary to like this kind of work, but it felt terribly heavy. This story showcase "ordinary" people, most of them broken as we all are, trying to live with their wounds. We can see the parish being this hospital for the spiritually sick, the lame and the oppressed to meet God. Except that I did not feel like they did. I had the impression that each character fought alone in the dark... And I needed, as much as they did, to see God meet them in their wretchedness but I could only catch glimpses of Him.

I did miss Him terribly.

[Elizabeth ARENDALE · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m so so sad about finishing this book.
I really love the way Thomas writes and I just loved Kirsty. She is so real. The word authentic is overused nowadays but it’s only because that is what everyone is craving.
The author handled Kirsty in such a lovely way- you learn about all of Kirsty’s failures gently, over the course of the book. But not before you begin to love her and relate with her.
So often in books written by Catholics, of which I assume Thomas is one, she writes with such familiarity, the author is scared to scandalize. So the characters end up being depicted as bleached one dimensional props. But all of the characters are depicted as so refreshingly honest- it seems like it has to be a non-fiction memoir!
I’m off to find anything else she has written.

[Daniel Winegarden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrically written. Sally Thomas's descriptions of water are especially compelling and metaphorical. This story begins with the quiet desperation of emotional isolation. But there's more to life and especially more to the life of the spirit. The story is more character-driven than plot-driven. But the events of a life are still turning points in character development. This book quietly explores the spiritual and emotional power of works of mercy, not only in the lives of recipients, but in the life of the giver.

[Eilisa Maes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everyone told me “it’s so hard to get into, but once you’re past the first chapter, it’s so good!”

Not for me , I instantly fell in love with the story. What a gifted story teller ! It is easy to read and the characters feel real. They are messy, and relatable.

I liked the way the main character started to come alive and seemed to wake up.

Why not 5 stars? There is no ending ! The story is not complete. Maybe that was her point- we just don’t know how we are going to finish ? But I like things to be wrapped up - good or bad - I want to know

[Becca Crooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 - 5

Debut novel from Sally Thomas - I so enjoyed reading this. I was in the world of Kirsty Sain and loved hearing how she "processed" her life. This is a book about a very ordinary life and the way Thomas captures that was very beautiful. I feel like I don't quite understand the ending so will have to think more on that... recommend.

[Danielle Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sally Thomas does an amazing job of pulling you into all the ways we receive and mercy. This novel challenges the notion of marriage, faith, motherhood, and the overwhelming need we all have for community. Read this book for grounding in the amazing role we all play, no matter how small, in the bigger story of humanity.

[Hannahlei · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sensitively wrought yet honest perspective of a widow wrestling with choices made in her youth, the consequences, and her current life. Characterization masterfully done and a wonderful combination of real life, memory, and dreams. Ends in hope without letting life off the reality hook. Unapologetically Catholic without proselytizing.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. This belongs on the shelf next to Wendell Berry and Niall Williams (This is Happiness). I’ll continue thinking about Kirsty Sain and her works of mercy along with all the other beautiful broken people in this story.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was just a lovely book. Beautiful writing with an intriguing main character who interacts with the parish priest and family she never really wanted to be around, but kind of ended up being one of them. I loved everything about this book.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas really knows what she's doing. This was such a delight to read, and one of the best books I've read recently. I really enjoyed the voice and the gentle nuance of everything, and at times I found myself looking into an uncomfortable mirror. Very beautiful book.