To Love Mercy

By Frank S. Joseph

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974478539
• ISBN13: 9780974478531
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Publishers Place Inc
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 1.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

So engrossing this non-reader could barely put it down

I read so much in my work that I rarely read for pleasure. But "To Love Mercy" so engrossed me that I finished it in just 3 nights (it was better than anything on TV and I really do like TV). Frank Joseph does an amazing job of capturing the diverse and distinct voices -- black and white, young and old -- of Chicago, circa 1948. The story is told by four of the book's characters, in their own distinctive voices and perspectives. The adventures of Steve and Sass through Chicago are a great adventure -- Riverview Park back when it was so restrictly racially segregated; playing penner -- possibly a unique Chicago schoolyard ball game; the lakefront; the CTA; Sass going downtown for the first time -- quite an adventure that the author captures with obvious affection for the city. A few surprises along the way -- and I don't want to reveal any of them. So enjoy this wonderous journey through 1948 Chicago when the WORLD CHAMPION WHITE SOX (get over it already Cub diehards) played at a park really called Comiskey.

Most engrossing story I've read in a long time ...

In his day job, Frank Joseph writes direct marketing copy for publishers like me. I thought I could spot his "voice" anywhere. But a line or two into this book and I forgot that it doesn't have a life of its own. Please don't tell me the characters of Sass and Steve (or most importantly, Dora) aren't real people. I see no Frank Joseph anywhere; only a living breathing story. Steve has a flat-footed compulsive innocence -- a refusal to let go of the optimistic view. A really cool character. And Dora is so substantive you can feel her hugs or hear the click of her tongue against her teeth as she shakes a finger at you. The way Frank tied the two characters together is wonderful. This is the most engrossing book I've read in ages. You can't overstate my enjoyment. Congratulations on a stupendous achievement.

A GREAT MUST-READ

A particularly accomplished first novel set in Chicago of the 1940s. For anyone interested in a fast moving story that explores the truths of human relationships beneath barriers of class and race. Like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, this book should appeal to both adults and adolescents.

Can be ranked with other great tales about a great if merciless city.

Frank Joseph has written a remarkable story about the tough racially charged culture of South Side Chicago in the late 1940s through the eyes of two children (both boys, one white, one black), an older black woman with ties to both their families and the other people they encounter. As some one who grew up there I can attest that the attitudes, the prejudices and the blindnesses that all too frequently trump all (or nearly all) of his characters' better instincts have been admirably captured in this compelling tale. The maxim "to write what you know" has been well served by this story. The author's own experiences as a child at this time and his meticulous eye for detail -places, radio ads, local soft drink brands, the rides at Riverview amusement park, etc. --enrich the story but don't get in the way. If you grew up there around the time this story occurs, you will only enjoy this more. If not, the interviews with many former residents of "Bronzeville"-Chicago's equivalent of Harlem-that the author includes as part of this book will give you some valuable local insights. I have not seized on a book so avidly since discovering Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which transformed what was in fact a rather ordinary tale by conveying it through the remarkable insights of its autistic main character. Like that book, the interactions of the viewpoints and emotions of the two boys (both 10) regarding their bigger world and its racial baggage (the white kid good willed but na?ve and confused, the black kid already toughened and wary ) let emerge truths that the adults can no longer grasp, or perhaps more accurately, no longer want to. This is all conveyed through a very interesting narrative style that employs extensive dialogue or interior ponderings to stress the dilemmas, fears and confusions of its three main characters. (This story cries to be a radio play or other spoken word rendition--Studs Terkel where are you!?) If you are interested in Chicago and its history but did not grow up there, this story will help you understand a little better why Chicago became the most segregated city in America with some of the uglier racial flash points of the 1960s and the bitterness of its politics following the election of Harold Washington in the 1983. Still, this is not a despairing tale. Much is achieved by both boys in the short span over which this narrative takes place, but this story does not really have a happy ending. Even though the two main families will discover they are tied together in numerous unexpected ways, the author, respecting the realities of the times and the place, does not promise all will be well if only this or only that. What this story conveyed to me, however, is that there were possibilities that could be grasped but with great difficulty and that perhaps either one or both these two boys might be end up playing their part in the movements of the 60s and after to change the world pictured

Cheap at twice the price!!!

You'll want to buy several copies of this book. You'll save the cost of shipping if you buy three!!! I plan to give copies now to several of my Grandnephews and later to my Grandson, just born, when he comes to the age of the heroes in this novel, who come of age together in a short, powerful few days. Get a tension-filled, but heartwarming glimpse of segregated Chicago through the eyes of these two boys from a writer who writes lovingly of Chicago with all its warts. A triumph of a first novel, and uplifting literature to boot. The historical afterword is worth the price of admission itself.