“Richards’ novel, which won the Giller Prize in Canada, glitters with prose that evokes the beauty and harshness of the Maritimes … a contemporary masterpiece that, in the tradition of Tolstoy, Camus and Melville, reminds us that redemption is to be found in the suffering of innocents and that revenge ultimately is an empty act that can never satisfy the human craving for retribution.”
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The Washington Post“[Richards] conveys his moral vision so fiercely, and he addresses the question of how one should live with such urgent seriousness, that he simply sweeps away all objections. Read twenty pages and you'll surrender to
Mercy Among the Children--and to its language.”
-The Atlantic Monthly“Richards’s story-telling is raw and suspenseful.”
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The Guardian“Richards’s prose is at once blunt and vivid and his best phrases are reserved for descriptions of the rural Canadian landscape his characters inhabit. But the real heart of this book is in its moral argurment: Richards's subtle dramatisation persuades us that to do no harm is not always to do no wrong.”
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The Observer
“This beautifully written tale will linger in the reader’s imagination.”
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Hello (London)
“[H]ow good is
Mercy Among the Children? The simple answer is, very good indeed.... Richards’ New Brunswick is a timeless and infinitely foreign place.... an incomparable voyage into humanity's flawed heart.”
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The Scotsman“Wonderfully told, this is a book that is redolent of E. Annie Proulx in its elegiac narrative, while achieving a depth of touch that feels truthful, individual and glorious. As the plot twists towards resolution, it becomes clear Richards has worked a tale of consummate morality and pathos.”
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Scotland on Sunday“Richards has cleverly constructed a novel which, although based around just one family, delves into the moral arguments surrounding appeasement, pacifism, and religion ... The reader, left haunted by so much heartbreak, is compelled to flick back to the beginning and read it all over again...”
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Evening Telegraph“It’s a wonderful thing to see a novelist swimming successfully against the tides of literary fashion....Richards has explored the idea that reality has an underlying moral structure. He writes of good and evil and human freedom to choose between them with an intensity of belief that puts him squarely in the tradition of his literary heroes, including Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky….What other novelist writes in a prose style of such knobby, uncanny, almost off-hand strength? And who else can so well catch the pettiness and misery of the criminal mind, or the melancholy of a child's longing for an absent parent, or the beauty and loneliness of the search for moral truth?
Mercy Among the Children is a masterpiece.”
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Maclean's
“[A]tale so timeless--or, better, functioning out of time--that it resonates more as moral fable than exercise in gritty realism....
Mercy Among the Children is a major novel precisely because it disavows concern for the structure of things in any one place and time in favour of the structure of things for all places and times. Literary fashions be damned; here is a fictional universe, fiercely imagined and brilliantly rendered, and everyone is welcome into it.”
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The Globe and Mail
“More serious attempts to write about saints seem to be limited to European novelists -- Dostoevsky in The Idiot, of course, and French Catholic novelists such as Leon Bloy and Georges Bernanos. Their novels are characterized by an emotional and spiritual intensity that doesn't let up for a second....
Whatever its mood and focus, the voice is always sincere. Nothing but the most thorough sincerity could carry off this wrenching story of good and evil, miracle and loss. In its depth of feeling and fierce drive,
Mercy Among the Children makes even the best of contemporary novels seem forced and pallid.”
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Toronto Star
“
Mercy Among the Children is an almost mythic story of poverty and survival...It is a special and all too rare experience to be utterly surprised by greatness... Let the reputation-building begin
: Mercy Among the Children is truly a great book, a grand achievement, a masterpiece.”"
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Quill & Quire“One of the great novels of our time…This novel is a tremendous testament to the endurance of the human spirit. It will remain with the reader long after its covers are closed…David Adams Richards is one of the exceptional writers of our time.”
-Alistair MacLeod, author of
No Great Mischief“David Adams Richards is perhaps the greatest Canadian writer alive…”
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Vancouver Sun
