Time, loss, evil and love intertwine in a sinuous new novel from Christy Ann Conlin. The Speed of Mercy tears into ideas of feminism, youth, identity and how our childhoods shape our true selves, even when we lose sight of that child.
Mal is on a journey, to discover what dark secrets lay in a place from a past that she has only heard whispers of. Present-day amateur journalist and podcaster, she is on the hunt for answers to what could be terrible questions. In this search, she seeks out the elderly Stella, who is spending her days in a special care nursing home and silently holding onto a terrible secret. The journey takes her to rural Nova Scotia, and a place called Mercy Lake, where all their destinies are bound.
We are then thrown into the past, where a young Stella is the sole survivor of a car accident that claimed the life of her mother, and she is learning to deal with her loss in the aftermath. Stella and her father are a family broken by tragedy, looking for healing in a small town in rural Nova Scotia, the place of her parents’ past. Stella becomes intertwined with Cynthia, a girl from a wealthy neighbouring family, whose connection to Stella and her father becomes clearer as the pages turn.
The fabric of the story begins to reveal itself like a Chiquet Quilt, each panel telling a part of a story, jumping back and forth through time. Conlin’s delicate hand with character, memory and above all a deeply felt connection for women and the ordeals they face, in our time and times past, is the very thread holding the patchwork together. I have almost never come across a novel that stretches across time that did not leave me wishing for more of one time and less of another. At each transition, I found myself more eager to live with these characters, their story and their fears, while all the while I was feeling each section building gracefully into the next. Conlin’s pace and gentle language carry us through this tale.
Very special attention was paid to the struggles of youth versus the ordeals of age, each given its time to grow and take root on the page. Conlin has a grasp of language that makes you gasp in what could be a standard line in another’s hands.
“She might have a head injury, she may be marbled with trauma, as the doctor says.”
A simple line that makes you stop in your tracks, to reread it again and again.
As the mystery at the core of the book unfolds, a darkness from the past resurfaces in the quiet hills of rural Nova Scotia. An ancient order of evil that has struck at the innocent heart of generations returns to try and finish what it started so long ago. It is a force that the characters confront across both timelines, and Conlin doesn’t release us from the grip of this chase until the last pages.
But for me, the true heart of the story was the women whose lives we are able to inhabit. The mechanics of young friendship, lost memory, ageing, grieving and its sisters are all on show here, and Conlin balances the ugly and the beautiful with a master’s hand. You will not soon forget what was lost and what was found on Mercy Lake.
The Speed of Mercy by Christy Ann Conlin is available March 23rd from House of Anansi Press.