A Mercy - Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison's latest novel, like her Pulitzer-Prize winning Beloved, focuses on the slave trade and the effects of slavery on women and families. In Beloved, a mother chooses to kill her own children to protect them from the horror of bondage. Here, a slave mother is forced to watch her daughter, Florens, given away to a Dutch traveler as payment for a debt. She hopes that a life with a man who abhors dealing in human flesh, and whose wife has just lost her own child, will be an improvement on the life she herself would be able to provide. The story is told from the perspective of Florens, of Rebekka (her new owner), and Lina (the sole survivor of small pox in her Indian village), among others. While it is easy to get lost in Morrison's lyrical prose and become enveloped in the sadness of her characters, the reader is forced to work quite a bit to understand whose story is being told in a given moment - but the pay-off is tremendous. As with much of Morrison's writing, the focus is on women - their strength and ability to survive the most horrific of circumstances. As a woman, I find it impossible to read Morrison without feeling a debt to those who have come before, an appreciation for the life I have, and a measure of hope in the midst of continuing struggle.