CBC Books
May 4, 2022
The Mercy Journals
CBC Books · CBC News · Posted: Mar 09, 2017 1:55 PM ET | Last Updated: December 7, 2018
This unsettling novel is set 30 years in the future, in the wake of a third world war. Runaway effects of climate change have triggered the collapse of nation/states and wiped out over a third of the global population. One of the survivors, a former soldier nicknamed Mercy, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is haunted by guilt and lingering memories of his family. His pain is eased when he meets a dancer named Ruby, a performer who breathes new life into his carefully constructed existence. But when his long-lost brother Leo arrives with news that Mercy’s children have been spotted, the two brothers travel into the wilderness to look for them, only to find that the line between truth and lies is trespassed, challenging Mercy’s own moral code about the things that matter amid the wreckage of war and tragedy.
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Set against a sparse yet fantastical landscape, The Mercy Journals explores the parameters of personal morality and forgiveness at this watershed moment in humanity’s history and evolution. (From Arsenal Pulp Press)