7 minute read
Mercy Street: A Journey Through Boston's Dusty Corners
Local author Jennifer Haigh discusses abortion, substance abuse, and mental illness in her latest novel.
by Danielle Miller | Design by Anvitha Nekkanti
“When Claudia looks back on that winter (as New Englanders can’t help doing), the days fuse together in her memory…She had no sense, at the time, of forces aligning, a chain of events set into motion. Like everyone else, she was distracted by the snow.”
In many ways, Boston is a city that lives in the past. Each day, countless Bostonians bustle down streets named after Franklin, Hancock, and Washington. We pass statues and buildings dedicated to figures of the past that jumble together like the glossary of a history textbook. For the populace in a city steeped to its cobblestones in history, what does it mean to live in the present? What can we see when we turn our gaze from the Boston of yesterday to the Boston we live in today? What troubles pervade our dear city, what are our collective hopes and dreams? Local author Jennifer Haigh seeks to illuminate these provoking questions in her new novel, Mercy Street.
Claudia, the story’s central protagonist, works at an abortion clinic in downtown Boston fielding phone calls and checking in patients. She makes her way each morning through a cluster of protestors before spending the day surrounded by expectant mothers and their loved ones. This was not the life she originally planned; she entered the working world as an assistant editor of a lifestyle magazine, a job provided by her boyfriend’s mother. Within a decade, she was divorced and working at Women’s Options on Mercy Street. This drastic lifestyle change, and what precipitated it, are contemplated throughout the book.
As an unmarried woman approaching middle age, Claudia struggles to find a purpose for her life in a society that highly values youth, fertility, and motherhood as cornerstones for the feminine ideal. Ever conscious and almost afraid of the impact her decisions can have on the overall trajectory of her life, Claudia is overly calculating when it comes to matters of her heart. After an unstable childhood, she prefers to live her life in organized steps, but this all changes upon her mother’s death just before the novel’s start. Without Deb, Claudia is unmoored. She seeks comfort in an old collegiate vice, marijuana, and is soon connected with Timmy, whose porch light is on even in the darkest hours of the night.
Timmy, Claudia’s friend, confident, and pot dealer, quickly becomes another main character in Mercy Street. Absent father to a son in Florida, Tim’s life revolves around procuring, selling, and smoking marijuana. Spending most of his days under the influence, he lounges in an armchair across from his television and tells stories of his life to a revolving door of customers. Inspired by whatever daily news segment catches his attention, Timmy recounts adventures from his time in the Navy, laments about unpleasant vacation experiences, and gives updates on his car remodel that may never get finished.
In 2015, Timmy is an endangered species since Massachusetts lawmakers are set to legalize the sale and use of marijuana within the year. Both logistical and personal barriers stand between Timmy and a clean lifestyle, but with the imminent loss of his profession, he has no choice but to face these blockades head-on.
Haigh shows impressive strength in her character development capabilities through both Claudia and Timmy. Not only did she create compelling histories and storylines for the pair, but she plays on their personalities during the events of the novel in ways that make you root for their bond. Reading their thoughts and witnessing their interactions is like watching two asteroids float toward collision. The result: a brief but powerful burst of light followed by drastic destruction and rebirth as two beings are forever changed.
Claudia’s resilience and intelligence are evident through the way Haigh writes her speech; even the descriptions in Claudia’s chapters adopt her straightforward tone. A well-written female character should possess rough edges and imperfect attitudes, and Haigh successfully stepped up to this challenge. In her quest for control and social acceptance, Claudia constantly attempts to smooth out or hide these perceived imperfections to little avail. With Timmy, however, she is able to drop her guard.
In the places where Claudia is tough, Timmy is gentle. Some might say that spending his nights and days in a recliner has made him too soft to succeed in his line of work, but for Claudia and his other clients, Timmy’s serenity is the source of comfort they desperately need. Despite this, Timmy is often trying to mask his softness behind a gruff exterior. He mirrors Claudia in his struggle to fit within the bounds of “masculinity” prescribed by society. Haigh’s description of this shared experience turns Mercy Street into a commentary on the emotional distress caused by trying to live within the confines of social standards for those who naturally deviate from the norm.
As both main characters struggle with life changes and look to find a purpose, Haigh paints the city around them to be in the grips of its own identity crisis. Barely over a decade after The Boston Globe exposed the abuse scandal in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Mercy Street depicts its lasting effects on the population of “the most Catholic city in America.” Saddled with this heavy legacy, Bostonians must figure out how to return their home to the right side of history.
The concepts of legacy and history are frequent guests in Haigh’s writing. Prior to Mercy Street, Haigh’s 2016 novel Heat and Light received glowing reviews for its nuanced insight into the effects of fracking on a small Pennsylvania coal town. When summarizing her career as a writer in its review of Mercy Street, The New York Times describes Haigh to be “peering deep into the heart of lost America, sketching characters whose interests are at cross purposes but whose deep-seated deprivation binds them together.” Thus, readers who are looking to reflect on underrepresented areas of American society will find their perfect match in the stories of Claudia and Timmy.
With this in mind, the progression of the plot toward the end of the novel left much to be desired. Upon the introduction of Victor, the book’s supposed villain, Haigh deviates from her original characters to provide him with adequate exposition. In theory, this practice should help the novel move forward, but she leaves Claudia’s perspective untouched for too long. By the time the narrative returns to her perspective, the emotional connection between Claudia and Haigh’s audience has severely diminished.
This sacrifice might have been worthwhile if Victor’s storyline was as compelling as the other characters, but this was not the case. Haigh’s intentions with Victor are clear in keeping with her tradition of exploring many perspectives on “hot-button” issues. However, she tries to conceptualize the pro-life movement into one person, a feat impossible to achieve. This causes Victor to appear over-dramatic with drastic reactions that vastly outweigh their causes. His sudden obsession with Claudia after seeing her face in a cell phone video is the perfect example of this phenomenon.
Additionally, the thwarting of his plans at the conclusion of the novel by a devastating car accident lacked the desired feelings of triumph and justice that normally accompany the defeat of a story’s villain. Leaving the fate of the characters in the hands of nature and circumstance cost Haigh an adequate climax for such an interesting subject and introductory plot.
While disappointing, the conclusion of Mercy Street does not discount the significance of telling this story. One of the many purposes of literature is to reveal the harsh realities of daily life. Haigh’s reflections on the emotional intricacies of abortion, complicated familial relationships, the pressure to succeed in American society, mental illness in this modern world, toxic masculinity, and darker corners of the internet in Mercy Street help us readers to context ualize our world. It will be exciting to see what shadowed alleyways Haigh decides to traverse next.
