This Dark Road to Mercy

Following her mother’s death, twelve-year-old Easter is forced to grow up in a hurry. She looks after her younger sister Ruby in foster care until their absent father Wade, a former minor league baseball player, emerges out of the blue and absconds with them. As Easter tries to piece together the kind of trouble Wade is in, he tries to mend their broken relationship. Meanwhile, the trio is pursued independently by both Brady Weller, the girls’ dutiful court-appointed guardian, and by Robert Pruitt, a mysterious and sinister man who has long harbored a grudge against Wade. As time passes, all three parties threaten to violently converge.

Like an eclectic friend’s literary mix tape, Wiley Cash’s second novel deftly blends several genres and influences. This Dark Road to Mercy is part road trip, part family drama, part sports story, part crime thriller, and part Southern Gothic adventure. The family dynamics read like a dark echo of Harper Lee, the working-class North Carolina milieu evokes Ron Rash, and the criminal stupidity and sarcastic dialogue evoke Elmore Leonard. That Cash can weave all of this together into something not only cohesive but taut and lean is a testament to his skill as a writer and storyteller.

At times, however, this efficiency can be a double-edged sword. Easter is a sympathetic and engaging character, but since we spend so much of the novel with her on the run, the action stilts her development in a way. And while Cash’s economy spares the reader excess, it sometimes seems like he is flinching. It’s true that the most chilling images are often the ones we are left to conjure ourselves, but Cash’s tiptoeing around the aftermath Pruitt’s violent rampage lowers the stakes and neuters the character’s menace.

With so many books bloated by minutiae and needless digression This Dark Road to Mercy is that rare read that could really benefit from more. Still, what’s there is enough to make a lasting impression.

8/10