Mercy among the children by David Adams Richards
When 12-year-old Sydney Henderson pushes Connie Devlin from a church roof, he makes a pact with God to never harm another soul if the boy survives.
Everything in Mercy Among the Children stems from this defining incident. After Connie gets up from the fall unscathed, Sydney goes through life in state of almost masochistic passivity and pacifism, in spite of the intolerance and ridicule he faces in his rural New Brunswick community.
Sydney’s choices eventually have consequences for his entire family, particularly his volatile son Lyle, who cannot comprehend his father’s turn-the-other-cheek attitude. When Sydney is implicated in a heinous crime in his Miramichi Valley community, Lyle decides that violence might be a more effective way to clear his family’s name.
Richards has been compared to Tolstoy for the moral questions he raises in this wrenching story. The novel is a compassionate depiction of people who struggle to endure the legacy of abuse, poverty and misfortune they’ve inherited from their parents.
Released to much praise in 2000, Mercy Among the Children was named one of the best books of the year by the Globe and Mail and Ottawa Citizen, and won the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Mercy Among the Children is Sarah Slean’s pick for Canada Reads.
David Adams Richards
Author of Mercy Among the Children
Born in Newcastle, New Brunswick, David Adams Richards says he found his calling as a writer after reading Oliver Twist at the age of 14. He has since published 12 novels and two non-fiction books.
Considered by many to be Richards’ most accomplished novel, Mercy Among the Children was co-winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2000. It also won that year’s Canadian Booksellers Association award for author of the year and fiction book of the year.
The Miramichi region is at the heart of Richards’ fiction, and his depictions of the place and its people have garnered him numerous awards and prizes. Notably, he is one of few writers in the history of the Governor General's Award to win for both fiction (Nights Below Station Street) and non-fiction (Lines on the Water). He was awarded the prestigious Canada-Australia Prize in 1992.
Richards has adapted a number of his novels for TV and film, including Nights Below Station Street. Small Gifts brought him his first Gemini, for original screenplay, and his second was awarded for his adaptation of For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down. He co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film adaptation of The Bay of Love and Sorrows.
Richards’ most recent book, The Lost Highway, was longlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize. His previous novel, The Friends of Meagre Fortune, was a Scotiabank Giller nominee in 2006 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean).
He has also written a non-fiction book on the place of hockey in the Canadian soul, Hockey Dreams.
Richards now lives in Toronto, but still has a licence to fish the Miramichi River.