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literarycrushes 's review for:
Mercy Street
by Jennifer Haigh
I read Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh for my book club, which I’ll point out because I don’t think I would have picked this one out on my own. I often find that novels about hot button topics feel forced, as though they’re being written for the sake of getting headlines or making sales rather than because they necessarily have something new to say about a polarizing subject. I did not find that while reading this book.
Mercy Street is a surprisingly quiet story. It is about Claudia, a single, middle-aged woman who works at an abortion clinic in Boston. Through Claudia, we are granted access to the intimate setting of the clinic and learn about many of the patients and their backstories. We also learn about Claudia herself, and her upbringing in rural Maine, where she was raised in a single-wide trailer by a single mother and spent most of her time caring for the array of fosters her mother took in to make extra money. Claudia is not a warm character, and you often feel that she is withholding something of herself as a protective measure. The other characters are all men, each of whom is somehow involved in a somewhat confusing plan to try and dissuade women from getting abortions by publicly shaming them.
I won’t say any more so as to not give the whole plot away, but my main gripe was the book’s pacing – the first half of the novel really takes its time, while the second half feels rushed and I often had to reread paragraphs to make sure I was still following what was going on. One of the characters, Victor, also tended to go on lengthy tirades that I guess were a necessary counterpoint to Claudia’s, and I think were meant to cast a somewhat empathetic view of him, but at times it was more than I could take. Overall though, I’m glad I read it and will be reading Haigh’s other novels soon!
Mercy Street is a surprisingly quiet story. It is about Claudia, a single, middle-aged woman who works at an abortion clinic in Boston. Through Claudia, we are granted access to the intimate setting of the clinic and learn about many of the patients and their backstories. We also learn about Claudia herself, and her upbringing in rural Maine, where she was raised in a single-wide trailer by a single mother and spent most of her time caring for the array of fosters her mother took in to make extra money. Claudia is not a warm character, and you often feel that she is withholding something of herself as a protective measure. The other characters are all men, each of whom is somehow involved in a somewhat confusing plan to try and dissuade women from getting abortions by publicly shaming them.
I won’t say any more so as to not give the whole plot away, but my main gripe was the book’s pacing – the first half of the novel really takes its time, while the second half feels rushed and I often had to reread paragraphs to make sure I was still following what was going on. One of the characters, Victor, also tended to go on lengthy tirades that I guess were a necessary counterpoint to Claudia’s, and I think were meant to cast a somewhat empathetic view of him, but at times it was more than I could take. Overall though, I’m glad I read it and will be reading Haigh’s other novels soon!