Amy Jo Burns, author of the critically acclaimed SHINER, returns with MERCURY, a richly textured, absorbing portrait of a roofing family and the secrets and loyalties that tie them both to one another and to Mercury, a shrunken steel industry outpost situated in a river valley.

It is 1990, and 17-year-old Marley West has just arrived in Mercury, the latest in a series of towns that she and her single powerhouse of a mother call home until it’s time to uproot again. As a child accustomed to her mother’s frequent moves, Marley is used to being the new girl. But the label carries new weight in the blue-collar town where visitors and new arrivals are few and far between. Her introduction to the town begins at a baseball game. There, she spots a husband and wife arguing behind a billboard, witnesses young men beat up one another mid-game, and catches the eye of Baylor Joseph.

Baylor is the eldest of the Joseph clan of roofers that is presided over by Mick, a temperamental and mercurial man who expects his son to continue the family business. Marley learns that Baylor is one-half of the fighting boys on the field; the other is his younger brother, Waylon. A keen student of family dynamics and relations, Marley watches, nearly in awe, as their mother, Elise, commands them into obedience with a single word. As the game ends, and the parents and classmates of the players make their way home, Baylor grabs Marley’s arm. Without realizing it, she becomes the sixth member of the Joseph family.

"In addition to penning some of the best-crafted characters I have ever read, Burns has done something really stunning here: her prose is crystalline yet lyrical, and her themes are timely and eternal."

Marley and Baylor take to frantic hook-ups in his truck, their connection simple and unlabeled. But with Elise’s invitation to the Joseph dinner table, Marley finds something much greater than teenage hormones: a family. Quickly putting an angry Mick in his place with the revelation that she inadvertently knows more about him than his family does, Marley earns the respect, if not the love, of Elise. In the rich tapestry of the Joseph home, Marley embraces the clamor, warmth and loyalty of the family, even if she never quite takes to Baylor.

When Marley pushes Baylor and winds up getting dumped, Elise issues her a permanent invitation to dinner, regardless of whether or not she is dating a Joseph. Just don’t, she warns Marley, think about trading one son for another. Having seen the beautiful sensitivity in Waylon, Marley is powerless against Elise’s challenge; within the year she's pregnant. With this chance to form a family, Marley becomes even more observant of Elise, who is beloved by the town but is shockingly cold at home. As she comes to find out, though, this picture-perfect facade is not without extreme sacrifice.

Only nine years later, Marley is coaching her young son, Theo, at his own baseball game. Waylon, who once called Marley’s pregnancy the luckiest moment of his life, is hiding behind the bleachers, wondering where it all went wrong. Their marriage, he realizes, has become less about love and loyalty and more about power: who has it and who gives it away.

Then the pay phone behind Waylon rings. The church, filled with the sweat and blood of every person who has ever called Mercury home, has a leaky roof, and the Joseph brothers need to repair it before Sunday’s sermon. Considering the turn his life has taken and the ways in which he differs from his brothers, Waylon takes the job along with Baylor. Upon examining the church attic, he discovers a body, rotting and mummifying in a painted-over alcove above the parish.

The identity of the corpse and how it ended up there form the linear, mystery-plot through line of MERCURY. But in Amy Jo Burns’ capable and talented hands, it is the characters who form the heart of the novel, particularly Elise and Marley. Though ostensibly about Joseph & Sons, and the fault lines and fractures between the brothers, it is Marley’s carving of her own identity, both separate from and comparable to that of Elise, that is the highlight of the book. Marley anchors and loves the Joseph family with the same all-encompassing power of Elise, but not with the same acceptance of sacrifice.

As the times change --- with presidential elections, rights for women and gay marriage forming the backdrop to blue-collar Mercury --- Marley takes everything she has learned from and about Elise and forges her own path, even as the arrival of the body threatens to upend everything she and the Joseph brothers have carefully created and preserved. In this way, although the mystery is riveting, it becomes obvious that the truth behind the body is less about a whodunit and more about how the plot changes the people, and the slow-burn transformations they undergo in real time. Burns’ handling of her characters is luminous, insightful and compassionate. MERCURY cements her as a brilliant chronicler of the human condition, of the ways that love can solidify loyalty…and sever it.

In addition to penning some of the best-crafted characters I have ever read, Burns has done something really stunning here: her prose is crystalline yet lyrical, and her themes are timely and eternal. If the plot occasionally takes a back burner to the character development, it is only because she writes each so strongly that the backdrop of Mercury is able to run and perform itself, allowing her masterly control of the characters to propel the novel forward.

Immersive, affecting and epic, MERCURY is already a contender for one of the best books of the year.