THE merciful
Southern Independent Booksellers Association READ THIS NEXT selection
Jon Sealy’s third novel is a morality play about a hit and run in a coastal South Carolina tourist town.
A lonesome highway. A hit and run. A coastal town in turmoil. Jon Sealy’s The Merciful is a gripping courtroom drama that explores a cast of small-town characters surrounding a deadly incident in coastal South Carolina.
The low-country town of Overlook is a sleepy tourist and retirement community known for its golf courses and laid-back lifestyle. But when 19-year-old Samantha James is killed in a hit and run one night while riding her bicycle home from work, the town sets out to crucify the alleged culprit, Daniel Hayward. The headlines tell a compelling story, but everyone involved has a “story” about what happened: the media, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, Daniel, and Samantha’s family.
As the book examines these myriad perspectives, The Merciful’s stunning scope ranges from characters striving for a kind of American success that's just out of reach, to questions of data analytics, brain emulations, and the very survival of humanity. Ultimately, however, the novel is a morality play that asks tough questions about the nature of justice-and mercy. What do you do when one moment, one accident, one decision changes the course of life forever?
Jon Sealy, the critically acclaimed author of The Whiskey Baron, delivers a probing look at questions of justice and mercy in our era of competing narratives and online outrage.
“A story was manipulation, and right now, the media was creating one version of events around Daniel Hayward. Claire Fields and the DA’s office had another story. Daniel and the defense attorney had their own angle, and it would be left to a judge to sort out the truth. Everyone has their own side, and if life had taught me nothing else, it was that there were very real limits to what we could know about another human being.
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Praise for the merciful
“Sealy keeps the narrative running smoothly throughout...A thought-provoking volume about how a wrong choice can have huge repercussions.” —Kirkus Reviews
“...a searing novel in which public judgments and personal reckonings spiral from a single moment.” —Foreword Reviews
“The resulting power of ‘The Merciful’ springs from Sealy's originalityof concept and seriousness of purpose, enhanced by echoes of an unusualand unexpected troika: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley and ScottTurow.” —Jay Strafford, The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
“Jon Sealy’s The Merciful is atmospheric and filled with suspense...This is a magnificent novel.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World
“More subtly uncomfortable than a thriller, this is a provocative novel from a strong southern voice--no two readers will come away with the same conclusion.” —Lydia Netzer, author of How to Tell Toledo From Ohio and Shine, Shine, Shine
“Jon Sealy’s The Merciful is a smartly recursive thriller.” —Matt Bell, author of Scrapper
“...an original and thoughtful novel with a hearty dash of mystery and suspense.” —TarHeel Reader
“...a fascinating take on modern society and the role media, especially social media, plays in our perception of events.” —Booksies Book Blog
“A novel that seeks to erase the hard won narrative of good vs evil, The Merciful by Jon Sealy is an epic undertaking.” —Centered on Books