REVIEW OF THE MERCIES (2020) BY KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE

 

       The Mercies is a fairytale sung on the wind. It is dark and lovely, brilliantly atmospheric, and above all, consuming. This historical novel bites and claws and hypnotizes, but breaks your heart with the vulnerability of its characters. Most of all, it is a woman-centric novel, one where few men hold a place in the narrative, and when they do, it is to create awesome destruction. 

     1617, Vardø, Finnmark, Norway. It is one of the northernmost points in Norway and the easternmost. Its landscape is mostly tundra, bare, and always cold. Its people rely on the sea to live, and it is the sea who betrays the small village. Only men are allowed to enter the harbor in their ships to fish, and one day they all do to spear a whale. Suddenly "as if loosened from a bag" a storm comes up and sinks the boats. The sea swallows the men whole, leaving only the elderly and young boys to be the leaders of the village. This is the place in which we find a young girl, Maren, at the beginning of the book. She is a young woman in her late teens/early twenties. She loses her father, brother, and fiancee in the storm. 

     After this incalculable loss, the women find themselves in a desperate spot. To fend for themselves they must do the fishing, harvest crops. skin animals and all other manners of things generally left to the men of the village. A faction of the women int he village become prejudiced against the women doing "men's work", causing a rift in the community at large. When a new commissioner comes to town, riding the high of his achievements in the Scottish witch trials, this rift is cut deeper, the fabric of the village begins to split in half.

    Ursa is the wife of the new Commissioner and is the second pair of eyes in our story. Ursa, a woman from the city of Bergen, born into wealth is suddenly transplanted from her home with her ailing sister and father to Vardø. She finds herself completely helpless in the remote village, having never had to tend home or take care of a man's needs (i.e. what Commissioner Absalom Cornet thinks passes for sex). Soon, Maren becomes her guide in all things house and home. They strike up a familiar relationship with one another, growing closer by the month. Spoiler alert: This new friendship is not so much platonic as it becomes romantic. Their story unfolds as the divide between the pious women and the women who shirk the town's traditions creates a rift between husband and wife.  

       I feel like whenever I know a story will be about witch trials or any kind of persecution of women, I'm ready to be mad. My heart rate is already heightened, I know I will have to read things that are uncomfortable and unfair. The Mercies surprised me, however. The strength of the community lies in its women's ties with one another, even if those ties are within two rivaled factions.

    This book addresses a myriad of themes ranging from grief to independence to longing and yearning to the often referenced other. Many are othered in this book, perhaps most importantly Dinna. Dinna is Maren's sister-in-law and the mother of Maren's beloved nephew. She is also a Sami woman who is not received well in a village full of Norwegians. Clinging to the traditions of her people, Dinna not only risks being outcasted by the village but outcasting her mother and sister-in-law as well. There is also the othering of the women who decided to take to the sea and shirk gender roles. On the flipside, outsiders such as Ursa and the Commissioner are also held at arm's length, sometimes demonized and sometimes idealized. 

    

    Grief also haunts the pages of this book. Maren's grief over her the loss of her father, brother, and fiancee is evident in each chapter, coloring her view of the rest of her family, drawing her apart from them. Her mother retreats into herself and her grief, only lashing out in anger after losing the two most important men in her life. She becomes obsessed with Christianity and the Church. On the flipside Dinna's grief causes her to reject everything she once accepted when she married Maren's brother, finding comfort in her Sami roots. 

    I loved this book. The narrative was rich with historic elements and the atmosphere was sparse and haunting. Hargrave's prose was not pretentious, but readable and oftentimes poetic. Her portrayal of Maren and Ursa's relationship was relatable and not sensationalized. Sometimes she did paint Maren as this wild woman of the north and Ursa as a cultured city girl (tropes tropes tropes), but their relationship with one another was eventually was made the horrors that occur in this book palpable. At the same time, she created an easily hateable villain of Commissioner Cornet. I was glad to see there was not One Reedeemable Quality written into this book. 

    

    I don't have much criticism for The Mercies. What Hargrave has done is masterful and intoxicating. I'd say it isn't for anyone who doesn't like a slow burn (because it is a slow burn) or anyone who isn't already interested in historical fiction. I do say it is for anyone who'd like a brief glimpse of hope in dark hours. If you'd like a big dose of self-reliance, as well as Pride and Prejudice sized yearning, this is the book for you. 

    

RATING: 💛💛💛💛💛

LINKS: 

NPR Review of The Mercies (FEB 2020): https://www.npr.org/2020/02/06/803098155/the-mercies-is-a-spark-of-light-on-a-bleak-shore

Wikipedia article on the Vardø Witch Trials of 1621: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vard%C3%B8_witch_trials_(1621)

Indigenous Work Group for Indigenous Affairs Sámi Overview: https://www.iwgia.org/en/sapmi.html

A-LIKES: 

The VVitch dir. by Robert Eggers (2015)

Potrait of a Lady on Fire dir. by Céline Sciamma (2019)

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff