A review by aimeedarsreads
Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh

emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? No

Claudia, a counselor at a women’s health clinic colloquially known as Mercy Street, can’t eat or sleep from the stress of her job. Not only does she answer the hotline and counsel women electing to have abortions—many in crisis or with tragic pasts, she has to pass a gauntlet of protestors to get inside the building.

 

Her preferred coping method is smoking pot, which she buys from her affable forty-something dealer, Timmy, who spends all day watching his giant TV while high. Anthony, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and manages by devoting himself to his local diocese—and smoking, takes the ferry to Boston each week to buy from Timmy. Abortion is anathema to his values, and he is one of the protesters outside Mercy Street.

 

Timmy is Anthony’s second best friend, but Excelsior11, Victor Prine, holds the highest spot. Prine, veteran, ex-trucker, and doomsday prepper, sends Anthony as well as other men, to clinics across the country on missions for his plan to stop abortions, for White women at least.

 

Although this description makes the book sound heavy and overly focused on abortion, its much more than that. Claudia’s sardonic, resigned observations give the book a dark humor. The characters’ backstories are exquisitely rendered with such vivid detail I didn’t just imagine the single-wide trailer of Claudia’s youth, I felt I was there.

 

While mercy should be offered, instead shame takes its place. With dozens of anti-abortion bills introduced in state legislatures and a conservative Supreme Court, MERCY STREET by Jennifer Haigh is a beautiful and important read.