Blue Mercy is Irish slang for an act of mercy with injurious consequences—or the opposite, an act of revenge that turns out to be a mercy. Orna Ross’s novel is well named: a story of paradoxes, polarities and, later on in the book, some extraordinary plot twists.
There is much to enjoy in this ambitious exploration of the ways in which close relationships form, develop and fall apart. The book has its fair share of heartache but also enough wisdom and variety to stop it becoming mawkish or dour (most of the time).
It will appeal especially to readers interested in unconventional choices and alternative lifestyles. The story follows Mercy, who leaves her native Ireland for beatnik America, only to find the woundedness of her background bedevilling new relationships and family. Her plight as a single mother with a troubled daughter, together with her quests for creative fulfilment and love, are movingly depicted.
The novel features multiple viewpoints and a back-and-forth timeline, which took me a while to get used to. One challenging aspect of the story is that most of it is told via Mercy’s posthumous memoir, as handed down to its reluctant recipient, daughter Star. Their complex parent-child bond is central to the story. Yet while Star’s own take on the relationship bookends the memoir, her version of events is largely absent from the body of the book. This lacuna creates an unresolved tension, such that even in the wistful closing movements of the book, I found I was still judging Star through her mother’s words—and troubled at finding her deeply unsympathetic without having heard her side of the story. I’m guessing this is deliberate: the author wants to keep the reader guessing and the story true to a world in which all the loose ends are rarely tied up.
Orna Ross is good on joy, sensuality and friendship (and I think the book could have benefitted from a little more exploration of this side of things, but see below!) The main love interest, for example, is beautifully if concisely realised: in Zach we find a subtle, enigmatic, dignified male character (whose mantra, ‘Bow to the present!’ has stayed with me) to complement the monstrous men—tyrannical father, feckless husband, creepy therapist, all of them deftly drawn—that crop up through the book. (Further oppositions occurs in Blue Mercy’s Ireland: the beauty of its landscape against the dolorous climate; the visionary uplift of its poetry against the claustrophobia of village life.)
I accessed Blue Mercy as an audiobook, and I found it a compelling listen. Adena Cahill, the audiobook narrator, has a strong voice and does characters and dialogue very well. However, I found her reading did not do complete justice to the text. Her default tone came across as downbeat and even gloomy. Despite the amount of painful material in the book, there were many tender moments, lyrical passages and flashes of humour whose leavening magic was not given its full head by her narration. For me, that made the story less balanced and seasoned than it might otherwise have been. (I couldn’t help wondering how it would have sounded read by the author. Orna Ross is a prolific podcaster, with a lovely warm voice. Perhaps, as an Irish woman, she feared being over-identified with Mercy, the book’s dominant first-person protagonist.)
All of which has left me curious to revisit Blue Mercy (in print). And there aren’t so many books, even among ones I like, I’d say that about.
