Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards

Mercy Among the Children

David Adams Richards

The cold, bleak and unwelcoming landscape provides a fitting backdrop to the intricately involved lives of this isolated community, seemingly frozen in time. It is sometimes difficult to comprehend that it's actually set in the latter part of the twentieth century. A very sad tale.

Extract
In my little house, the nineteenth century supper had taken place, while on the television the twentieth century stocks had just closed. The vigilantes, I suppose, could have been in any time, any place.
Parallels
  • Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
  • East of Eden by John Steinbeck