MERCY
A rich and nuanced story beginning with a moment of fear and abandonment that will reverberate across decades and change the course of many lives, by a beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author
In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave him there.
A rich and nuanced story beginning with a moment of fear and abandonment that will reverberate across decades and change the course of many lives, by a beloved PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author
In the gritty East Village of 1970s New York, Ivan and his best friend, Eddie, a popular local bartender, are dabbling in drugs following a short tour of Europe. One night, as Ivan and Eddie experiment with heroin, things go horribly wrong. In a panic, Ivan rushes Eddie to a crowded local ER and, believing his friend is about to die, makes the awful choice to leave him there.
This one act of abandonment haunts Ivan his entire life. He keeps this secret from his friends and later his family, forever searching for mercy from “a remorse that never dies.” Ivan’s decision also ripples across time through an extended community, affecting a host of other people unknowingly connected to that night.
Following a bold cast of characters across decades, and set against the changing social and sexual mores from the 1970s onward, Mercy is Silber’s most ambitious and expansive novel yet, proving once again how we are all connected in mysterious and often unknown ways.
- Counterpoint
- Hardcover
- September 2025
- 256 Pages
- 9781640097070
Buy the Book
$27.00
About Joan Silber
JOAN SILBER is the author of ten books of fiction. Her last book, Secrets of Happiness, was a Washington Post and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year and an O Magazine Most Anticipated Book. Her novel, Improvement, was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. She also received the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Her book, Fools, was long-listed for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Other works include The Size of the World, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and Ideas of Heaven, finalist for the National Book Award and The Story Prize. She lives in New York and has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Warren Wilson MFA program.
Praise
Library Journal, A Title to Watch
Literary Hub, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
“A story of love, tragedy, of paths diverging and intertwining, Mercy is human and moving, awful and beautiful.” —Julia Hass, Literary Hub
“Silber—the great chronicler of the webs of love and coincidence that connect people—turns her attention to drugs and sex and mercy . . . Like a favorite special in a beloved restaurant, Silber again serves her unique flavor of reading joy.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Alluring . . . Silber sheds light on how people are shaped by where they come from and who they know.” —Publishers Weekly
“Joan Silber’s sweeping yet intimate novel traces the delicate patterns by which others, often from afar and unknowingly, may determine our innermost longings and even our fate. Mercy is a profound, gorgeously written reflection on identity, friendship, and love. A book that keeps echoing long after turning the last page.” —Hernan Diaz, author of Trust, Winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“The universe of Joan Silber’s superb new novel Mercy is vast yet particular: it holds its inhabitants accountable for their actions, forgiving them, shaking them, binding their destinies through the power of story. What do the vanished owe to the visible? What do the living owe the dead? As Mercy tackles these powerful questions, it reveals itself to be a true masterpiece.” —Carolyn Ferrell, author of Dear Miss Metropolitan