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 do overlap, sometimes in surprising ways, and the novel does come full circle with its final chapter, in a manner that is both satisfying and unexpected.

"...a quiet and expansive novel... Silber revisits changing mores about sexuality and substance use through the stories and lives of her multifaceted characters."

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 characters and relationships front and center. Throughout, Silber revisits changing mores about sexuality and substance use through the stories and lives of her multifaceted characters.