Mercy, Unbound

Where I Got The Crazy Idea for Mercy, Unbound & Other Tidbits

For a long time, maybe even years, I kept seeing this girl in my mind’s eye. She had wings and she wanted me to tell her story. Then one weekend, Mario and I were at the beach in Newport, Oregon. It was night. The window was open and we could hear the ocean. I sat at my computer and started to write. I had not planned on starting a novel, but I did. It was as if Mercy was in the room with me telling me her story. When I got home, I continued writing her story, somewhat effortlessly. I felt such empathy with her because I often (daily) wonder what I can do to save the world and help alleviate suffering.

I rarely have villains in my novels. Life and people are so much more complicated that that. It’s easy storytelling to have a bad guy and a good guy. And sometimes that kind of story is very satisfying. But most of the time, I believe, people are just trying to get through their days the best way they can. In Mercy’s story, there are no villains, yet she suffers. She’s a smart girl. She sees the world truthfully and wants to know why no one is doing anything to make it better. So she tries and takes on too much herself.

I loved hearing her story and writing it. I loved the girls in the clinic. Just before I went into high school, I had a bout with anorexia/bulimia. A younger sister of mine has struggled with it for years, and I got her permission to use some of the details from her experience in the book. Some people see this as a book about anorexia. I don’t. Although I hope people who suffer from anorexia/bulimia will find insight in the book, I think Mercy’s story is about all of us who are trying to live on this planet in peace.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan House is a real place and one of my favorite places on the planet. Yes, there really are a group of flagellants in New Mexico. I haven’t checked lately, but I think they’re still around. Cafe Pasqual’s is a real restaurant in Santa Fe and they do serve fried bananas. Although the name of the eating disorder clinic, Mercywood, was perfect for the book, I didn’t make it up, at least not completely. Mercywood was a psychiatric hospital (what we used to call a mental institution) in Ann Arbor where a few of my relatives spent some time when I was growing up. I don’t know if it exists any more.

Wholly Inadequate Descriptions of This Book

The One Sentence Pitch:
Mercy believes she is becoming an angel so she doesn’t have to eat, but her parents believe she has anorexia so they send her to an eating disorder clinic.

Cover Blurb:
Mercy is becoming an angel. She feels wings sprouting from her shoulder blades. They itch. Sometimes she even hears them rustling. And angels don't need to eat. So she doesn't eat. Her parents send her to an eating disorder clinic in New Mexico. She isn't like the other girls who are so obviously sick. Her wings don't come and she begins to have doubts. What if she isn't really an angel? What if she is just a girl, like Bluebird, Suzy-Q, Mia, and Snapshot?

Questions to Start A Scintillating Discussion

1. Why do you think Mercy stopped eating?

2. Do you think Mercy was really an angel?

3. Does it matter if Mercy was or wasn’t an angel?

4. What significance do you think her dead brother Peter had in the story? What about her dog? Her grandfather?

5. What did you think of the other girls in the eating disorder clinic? Do you think they thought they were ill?

6. Do you think Mercy changed by the end of the book? What about the girls from the eating disorder clinic?

7. Do you think it’s significant that the girls stumbled upon a ruined church? Why do you think they got so angry when they saw the men beating themselves?

8. What did you think of Mercy’s family? Did you think they caused any of her problems?

9. Did Mercy figure out how to live in this world despite all that she saw going on?

10. What significance do you think the movie King of Hearts had? Have you seen it? If you haven’t, are you going to?

11. Some people don’t like Mercy’s mother at all, and other people think she’s the greatest mother in the world. What do you think? What about Mercy’s father?

12. What do you think happened to Mercy when she disappeared?

13. What did the book mean to you?

Nice Things Reviewers & Others Are Saying

"Funny and painfully honest..." —Booklist

"Mercy, Unbound is the most beautiful book I've ever read." —Kristin from punkersangelbaby

"...many readers will want this for the family story and for the teen talk, which is fast, frank, and irreverent."
—Booklist

"I think its marvelous. I hate saying someone's writing is luminous, because it seems such a cliche, but hers is. I also think the theme of being overwhelmed by the world is one that a lot of teens can relate to. Heck, a lot of adults can relate to this one, too." —bookstoregirl at Can't Stop Reading

First chapter

Part One

Call me Mercy. Or TAM for short. T.he A.ngel M.ercy. Yes, I’m an angel. Or about to be an angel. I have only recently awakened to this realization. Or figured it out. A revelation, if you will. The wings were a big clue. You can’t see them? You will. At first they felt like new teeth coming in. Do you remember that feeling? Kind of itchy, irritating. I wanted to cry all the time. I lost my appetite. Then I knew. Those little buds on my shoulder blades--along with everything else--sealed the deal. I was an angel. And angels don’t need to eat.

“You’re not an angel, Mercy. You’re a fifteen year old girl! A young woman. You have to eat. It’s dinner time. I should have never named you Mercy. What were we thinking? We weren’t actually, since I was in labor. George said, ‘Let’s call her Mercy because God is merciful,’ and I screamed, ‘Cut the crap, George! Oh lord have mercy!’ It was purely coincidental really. I wasn’t calling out your name, I was just trying not to swear too much. We were in a Catholic hospital, and I didn’t want to offend. George, talk to your daughter. She needs to come down here and eat!”

That was my mother. When she’s scared, she gets angry. A defense mechanism, my father says. I think she’s funny. Most of the time. But she doesn’t understand that silence can be golden. I think she talks a lot because then she knows she is breathing then. She has asthma, and sometimes she can’t talk much because she’s out of breath--so talking is just her way of letting the world know she’s still alive and kicking.

“Goddamnit, George. If she doesn’t eat, she’s gonna waste fade away.”

“You can’t force her to eat.”

“I will not watch my daughter starve. MERCY!!!”

For not believing in God, my mom sure does take God’s name in vain a lot. I’m purposely not using a pronoun--he or she--because I don’t see God as a he or a she. Really. I never have. OK. That’s not quite right. Sometimes when I’m outside in the woods and see a cardinal (no pun on the name intended) all bright and red sitting on the branch of an oak tree, I’ll think, “Isn’t he beautiful.” And I know that the cardinal is God. Or the next door neighbor’s cat, Muncie, who is a calico, she’ll look at me a certain way, and I’ll have to laugh, because I know she is God.

I used to be sad all the time. Then something happened.

But that’s a different story. I was talking about my mother. She doesn’t believe in God. She said she can’t because if there really was a God who could make things better and didn’t, then that God was a crazy evil sonofabitch—and she would not could not believe in that kind of God.

“What about a God who isn’t omnipotent?” I asked her once. “What if God was just this creative being who now needs a little help. What would you say to that?”
“I’d say to God, ‘We’ve all got problems, buddy. Get in line.’”

“Mercy.”

My father is so different from my mother. Night and day. And he’s the day. Laid back. Non-confrontational. Calm. But then, my mother says, he has reason to be. He was raised in the Midwest, on a farm, an organic farm, no less, by calm and loving parents, who provided for him and his sister and brother. When I was a girl, before I knew I was an angel, my father would let me crawl all over him. When I was very little, he would sit on the floor of my bedroom with me and play for hours. He would do whatever I asked. Play whatever game I wanted to play. When Mom was pregnant with my brother, we played “baby in the tummy” for months.

Only the baby in the tummy never got birthed. They took him out after he died. At least that was what my parents told me later. Or maybe Grandma told me. I’m not sure. They never talk about it now. His name was Peter. That’s all I know. That and the fact that he sat at the end of my bed for a few years after he wasn’t born. I never told Mom and Dad. I think that would have sent Mom right over the edge.

“Mercy,” my father said again. “You have to eat.”

“I’m not hungry, Dad,” I said.

“Please, come down to the table,” he said. “This can’t be good for you, and it’s very upsetting to your mother.”

I acquiesce. Dad puts his arm across my shoulder as we start down the stairs, then quickly draws away from me.

“How much weight have you lost?” he asks.

“How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?” I ask.

“Mercy--”

“Angels don’t weigh anything at all,” I say. “Don’t worry. It’s like we angels are on the Moon all the time. Think of us as Earth astronauts, George.”

My father sighs. He does not like it when I call him George, but he’s not really my father. At least I don’t think he is. Anymore than Nancy is really my mother. Angels don’t have parents, do they?

“I wish you’d call me Dad,” he says, again. “I’m sure angels have parents.”

“Only dead ones,” I say.

“Pardon me?” We are walking into the dining room now. The long walnut table has been set for three. Bowls of food with steam rising from them decorate the table. I don’t pay any attention to what is in the bowls. Unfortunately, I still crave Earthly delights and must constantly monitor myself.

“Children can become angels,” I say, “if they’re dead. So I’m saying I could have parents if I were a child.”

My mother comes into the dining room then. She’s heard what I said, and she looks stunned.

“I was just explaining--”

“Sit down and eat,” Mom says. “All of you.”

I guess by all of us, she means my dad and me. Although I don’t know for certain. Ghosts seem to haunt our dinner table.