KENT, Conn.—The August Book Club at the House of Books will feature a relaxed discussion led by Ben Rybeck of “A Mercy” by Toni Morrison on Wednesday, Aug. 20, at 6 p.m.
“A Mercy,” Morrison’s ninth novel, was published in 2008.
Set in colonial America in the late 17th century, it is the story of a European farmer, his purchased wife, and his growing household of indentured or enslaved white, Native American and African characters.
It made the New York Times Book List Review list of 10 Best Books of 2008.
Florens, a slave, lives and works on Jacob Vaark’s rural New York farm. Lina, a Native American and fellow laborer on the Vaark farm, relates in a parallel narrative how she became one of a handful of survivors of a smallpox plague that destroyed her tribe.
Meanwhile, Vaark’s wife Rebekka describes leaving England on a ship for the new world to be married to a man she has never seen. The deaths of their subsequent children are devastating, and Vaark accepts a young Florens from a debtor in the hopes that this new addition to the farm will help alleviate Rebekka’s loneliness.
Vaark, himself an orphan and poorhouse survivor, describes his journeys from New York to Maryland and Virginia, commenting on the role of religion in the culture of the different colonies, along with their attitudes toward slavery.
The House of Books is located at 10 N. Main St.