Toni Morrison is the master of coaxing the voices of the past to life. The stories her characters tell are vivid, vital, and often full of sorrow. With her close narration, Morrison couples the reader's journey with the narrator's, the former bleeding in concert with the latter. In Morrison's most recent novel, "A Mercy," she once again excavates the unheard secrets of those kept silent through history.
"A Mercy" is a much more compressed narrative than previous novels of Morrison's such as "Beloved" and "Song of Solomon." Here, the author has not limited her cast of characters; they reveal a number of things about themselves and the rest of the cast simultaneously. Also, Morrison excises the magical realism component present in the aforementioned novels. This story comes across as deliberate, a straightforward chronicle of the facts. The emotion, however, remains despite the forthright approach.
The story unfolds in the late 1600s just as the slave trade is beginning to cement. An enslaved mother in Maryland gives up her daughter, Florens, in order to keep her younger son by her side and to exclude Florens from the lechery of the master's family.
Florens is given to Jacob, an Anglo-Dutch trader who does not "deal in the flesh," but is willing to take Florens as a settlement of a debt. Jacob's wife, Rebekka, has recently lost her only surviving child in an accident and he hopes that she will be somewhat cheered by the presence of this child.
It is Lina that responds to Florens' arrival, however. She is the last member of a tribe decimated by the arrival of the colonists, an invasion that Morrison describes with the horrifying simplicity of reality. Lina takes charge of Florens' well-being as if she were her own.
Finally, there is Sorrow. Sorrow is mysterious. Little is known of her other than she spent her childhood living at sea. Sorrow's strangeness is tolerated and her complexities are revealed when her voice is amplified by the author.
"A Mercy" is primarily a story of women as well as a scrutiny of the intricate inner-workings of slavery. Jacob sets his sights on establishing himself as a wealthy man, leaving the women to the more domestic responsibilities. All animosity between Florens and her mistress has dissipated in the face of long years of tending to the same house. The friendships woven under such circumstances are conditional, but Morrison makes it evident that women can be, and were, a source of strength for each other.
Morrison illuminates her characters' stories methodically. At this point in America's history, the struggle is not for pleasure but for survival. The women and men either bend their circumstances to their will, or are bent by them. No one's position is easy, and Morrison provides sympathetic views of her protagonists. There is an initial sense of solidarity, a coalescence that might serve as a level foundation. As the narrative unwinds, however, this union begins to fracture and the insipid seeds of greed and domination take root.