Ms.
Jennifer Haigh, an expert natural storyteller with a keen sense of her characters\' humanity ( New York Times ), has written a groundbreaking novel, a fearless examination of one of the most divisive issues of our time..
Mercy Street is a novel for right now, a story of the polarized American present.
At Timmy\'s, she encounters a random assortment of customers, including Anthony, a lost soul who spends most of his life online, chatting with the mysterious Excelsior11--the screenname of Victor Prine, an anti-abortion crusader who has set his sights on Mercy Street and is ready to risk it all for his beliefs.
As the protests intensify, fear creeps into Claudia\'s days, a humming anxiety she manages with frequent visits to Timmy, an affable pot dealer in the midst of his own existential crisis.
A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door.
Anonymous threats are frequent.
But outside the clinic, the reality is different.
For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance.
The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis.
For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city.
Her work is gripping, real, and totally immersive, akin to that of writers as different as Richard Price, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo.--Janet Maslin, New York Times The highly anticipated new novel by acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh--a gifted chronicler of the human condition ( Washington Post Book World )--is a tense, riveting story about the disparate lives that intersect at a women\'s clinic in Boston.
Haigh is an expertly nuanced storyteller long overdue for major attention.
Ms
