Mercy Street: a novel

Claudia has worked at the Mercy Street clinic in Boston for years. As the daughter of a teen mom, she never knew her father beyond the mysterious force behind the Christmas packages that arrived at their trailer. Now she's learned the specifics of clinic work, like how the hotline is busiest on Mondays with the consequences of the weekend's events. She's nicknamed the one anti-abortion protestor who shows up every day "Puffy," for his down coat. And she hasn't slept through the night since the mandatory training on what to do if a shooter hides in the building. As it is, there's a different type of shooter that will soon concern her, Anthony, who's been photographing women entering the clinic for a man he knows only as Excelsior11 to post online in a Hall of Shame. Victor, the man behind the screen name, immediately becomes obsessed with Claudia and harangues Anthony for more photos. Haigh's multifaceted storytelling deftly weaves a tangled web that includes Claudia's pot dealer, as each character strives to find meaning in his or her life.

Haigh (Heat & Light) explores the issue of abortion in this layered if frustrating story of a Boston women's health clinic. Claudia, a counselor at Mercy Street, struggles with insomnia and anxiety after the death of her difficult mother, as well as because of her daily work with women who are faced with unwanted pregnancies. To cope, she smokes weed. Meanwhile, antiabortion protesters mount a steady campaign outside the clinic, and Haigh delves into their world. Among them is a rabidly antiabortion activist and racist retiree named Victor, who is tangentially connected to Claudia's dealer and maintains a website where he shames white women who visit Mercy Street. The set up is strong and culminates in Victor deciding to travel to Boston from his log cabin in Pennsylvania to "save" Claudia, but the narrative runs out of steam just as it gets going. Haigh doesn't successfully weave the different narrative threads, delving into what leads men to become violent antichoice activists, for instance, but leaving the female characters disappointingly unexplored. There are some solid building blocks, but they crumble into an unsatisfying resolution. This doesn't hit the high marks it aims for. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (Feb.)

Despite Boston's brutal winter of 2015, the work of the Mercy Street women's health center never falters. The clients are desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies against a ticking legal calendar. Forty-three-year-old Claudia (herself born to an unwed teenage mother) has been a counselor for a decade. Her deep well of compassion and patience is at the heart of the novel and its intertwining lives--the center's clients, with their wildly diverse circumstances; the anti-abortion protestors outside the clinic every day who become more and more threatening; Timmy, Claudia's friend with the good weed; and Anthony, the deeply religious Catholic protestor under the thrall of the mysterious online Excelsior11, who is targeting Claudia. As the snow piles up, the danger to the clinic grows, but the work must go on. VERDICT Haigh (Baker Towers), an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author, holds her readers captive from first to last page with an unflinching look at the human tragedies that lie behind every layer of the never-ending controversial national abortion battle. Her piercing character portrayals and eavesdrop-quality dialogue will have readers asking for her previous works.--Beth Andersen

Having addressed fracking in Heat and Light (2016), Haigh now tackles abortion in a polemical novel that revolves around a Boston women's clinic. Divorced and childless, 43-year-old Claudia is an abortion counselor at Mercy Street, a clinic in a gentrified area of Boston once known as the Combat Zone. As the daughter of an impoverished single teenage mother, she well understands "the stark daily realities that made motherhood impossible" for many of her clients. After nine years, Claudia is a pro at taking care of the patients while ignoring the protestors who gather outside the clinic every morning. Still, the stresses of the job get to her (the women with late-term pregnancies "cracked her open"), so periodically Claudia seeks relief from her pot dealer, Timmy. Also dropping in to make a buy is Anthony, a lonely incel living off disability insurance in his mother's basement. Anthony spends his days attending Mass, protesting at Mercy Street, and emailing photos of women going into the clinic to an anti-abortion crusader with the screen name of Excelsior11, who's actually a Vietnam vet and former long-haul trucker named Victor Prine. During the winter of 2015, these four characters, whose social isolation keeps them as frozen as Boston's stormy weather, will find their lives intersecting and transformed, not always for the better. Haigh excels at depicting people beaten down by life, but it's hard to feel much sympathy for her drearily drawn male protagonists, who are less nuanced individuals than indistinguishable stereotypes. With the anti-abortion movement gathering steam in the legislative arena, her portrait feels dated. Despite its flaws, Haigh's novel will provide plenty of discussion fodder for reading groups. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Claudia has worked at the Mercy Street clinic in Boston for years. As the daughter of a teen mom, she never knew her father beyond the mysterious force behind the Christmas packages that arrived at their trailer. Now she's learned the specifics of clinic work, like how the hotline is busiest on Mondays with the consequences of the weekend's events. She's nicknamed the one anti-abortion protestor who shows up every day "Puffy," for his down coat. And she hasn't slept through the night since the mandatory training on what to do if a shooter hides in the building. As it is, there's a different type of shooter that will soon concern her, Anthony, who's been photographing women entering the clinic for a man he knows only as Excelsior11 to post online in a Hall of Shame. Victor, the man behind the screen name, immediately becomes obsessed with Claudia and harangues Anthony for more photos. Haigh's multifaceted storytelling deftly weaves a tangled web that includes Claudia's pot dealer, as each character strives to find meaning in his or her life. Copyright 2021 Booklist Reviews.

A counselor at Mercy Street, a woman's clinic in Boston, Claudia recognizes how important her work is for her patients. But she's feeling the stress of daily antiabortion protests outside the clinic doors and seeks relief from cheery pot dealer Timmy. Among the other customers she meets is woebegone Anthony, who spends much of his time chatting online with an antiabortion crusader going by the screen name Excelsior11. And now Excelsior11 is targeting Mercy Street. From the New York Times best-selling, PEN/Hemingway Award-winning Haigh; with a 100,000-copy first printing.

Despite Boston's brutal winter of 2015, the work of the Mercy Street women's health center never falters. The clients are desperate to end their unwanted pregnancies against a ticking legal calendar. Forty-three-year-old Claudia (herself born to an unwed teenage mother) has been a counselor for a decade. Her deep well of compassion and patience is at the heart of the novel and its intertwining lives—the center's clients, with their wildly diverse circumstances; the anti-abortion protestors outside the clinic every day who become more and more threatening; Timmy, Claudia's friend with the good weed; and Anthony, the deeply religious Catholic protestor under the thrall of the mysterious online Excelsior11, who is targeting Claudia. As the snow piles up, the danger to the clinic grows, but the work must go on. VERDICT Haigh (Baker Towers), an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author, holds her readers captive from first to last page with an unflinching look at the human tragedies that lie behind every layer of the never-ending controversial national abortion battle. Her piercing character portrayals and eavesdrop-quality dialogue will have readers asking for her previous works.—Beth Andersen

Haigh (Heat & Light) explores the issue of abortion in this layered if frustrating story of a Boston women's health clinic. Claudia, a counselor at Mercy Street, struggles with insomnia and anxiety after the death of her difficult mother, as well as because of her daily work with women who are faced with unwanted pregnancies. To cope, she smokes weed. Meanwhile, antiabortion protesters mount a steady campaign outside the clinic, and Haigh delves into their world. Among them is a rabidly antiabortion activist and racist retiree named Victor, who is tangentially connected to Claudia's dealer and maintains a website where he shames white women who visit Mercy Street. The set up is strong and culminates in Victor deciding to travel to Boston from his log cabin in Pennsylvania to "save" Claudia, but the narrative runs out of steam just as it gets going. Haigh doesn't successfully weave the different narrative threads, delving into what leads men to become violent antichoice activists, for instance, but leaving the female characters disappointingly unexplored. There are some solid building blocks, but they crumble into an unsatisfying resolution. This doesn't hit the high marks it aims for. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (Feb.)