Review
I was quite disappointed by
A Mercy. There, I've said it. It feels
sacrilegious to speak ill of such a worthy book and such an exalted author. But
if a novel can be at once worthwhile and disappointing, this one is.
The story begins in a recognizably Morrisonian voice. "Don't be afraid," the
voice says. "My telling can't hurt you in spite of what I have done and I
promise to lie quietly in the dark—weeping perhaps or occasionally seeing the
blood once more—but I will never again unfold my limbs to rise up and bare
teeth." Immediately what springs to mind is the incomprehensibly monstrous deed
at the heart of
Beloved, and we wonder: who is this woman and what has
she done? Is Morrison going to take us to a place as terrible as that in
Beloved? At the end of the first chapter, the voice intones, "But I have a
worry. Not...
Beyond the Book
American Slavery in the Seventeenth Century
Toni Morrison locates her novel at a moment of transition in American
history, the moment when, to use the historian Ira Berlin's terms, a society
with slaves became a slaveholding society. British colonialists had owned
African slaves ever since the founding of Jamestown, but in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, slavery was just one form of labor among many and
slave-owners were few.
No laws yet existed to govern this relationship, and African slavery was not yet
a legally defined identity. In the mid-Atlantic region, black slaves were
treated similarly to white servants and the two groups forged solidarities
across racial lines. Neither group was treated well, but slavery was not yet
legally...
