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Billie Livingston is the award-winning author of three novels, a collection of short stories, and a poetry collection. Her most recent novel, One Good Hustle, a Globe and Mail Best Book selection, was nominated for the Giller Prize and for the Canadian Library Association’s Young Adult Book Award. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The Crooked Heart of Mercy: A Novel
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$1.99
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ISBN-13:
9780062413765
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 03/08/2016
- Sold by: HARPERCOLLINS
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 272
- File size: 724 KB
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From acclaimed Canadian novelist Billie Livingston comes this powerful U.S. debut that unfolds over a riveting dual narrative—an unforgettable story of ordinary lives rocked by hardship and scandal that follows in the tradition of Jennifer Haigh, A. Manette Ansay, and Jennifer Egan.
Ben wakes up in a hospital with a hole in his head he can't explain. What he can remember he’d rather forget. Like how he’d spend nights as a limo driver for the wealthy and debauched….how he and his wife, Maggie, drifted apart in the wake of an unspeakable tragedy…how his little brother, Cola, got in over his head with loan sharks circling.
Maggie is alone. Again. With bills to pay and Ben in a psych ward, she must return to work. But who would hire her in the state she’s in? And just as Maggie turns to her brother, Francis, the Internet explodes with video of his latest escapade. The headline? Drunk Priest Propositions Cops.
Francis is an unlikely priest with a drinking problem and little interest in celibacy. A third DUI, a looming court date.…When Maggie takes him in, he knows he may be down to his last chance. And his best shot at healing might lie in helping Maggie and Ben reconnect—against all odds.
Simmering with dark humor and piercing insights, The Crooked Heart of Mercy is a startling reminder that redemption can be found in the most unlikely of places.
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Lynn Coady
A stirring meditation on faith, grief, and the eternal human project of forgiving ourselves our sins. It grips the reader’s crooked heart and doesn’t let go.Will Ferguson
Steeped in regret, and filled with longing, The Crooked Heart of Mercy is the poignant story of broken people trying desperately to be whole, lost somewhere between a prayer and a wish. Raw and heartfelt. Remarkable.Washington Independent Review of Books
The novel echoes with Flannery O’Connor, and Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory... The difference, however, is that Livingston’s take on faith is more compassionate than O’Connor’s and more lighthearted than Greene’s.... The Crooked Heart of Mercy is a gem.Vancouver Sun
In The Crooked Heart of Mercy, her stellar fourth novel... Livingston immediately sets up a pressing question: can these lost souls overcome their tragedy and, if so, how? Tender, quirky, and sporadically quite comic, her answer is fruitful as well as a delight to follow.The Globe and Mail
Livingston avoids cliché and caricature, and is able to investigate the necessity of belief in all its forms without descending into the didactic. She has a real knack for voice, bouncing back and forth... gracefully and believably.Manhattan Book Review
[A] nuanced exploration of grief and family loyalty, showing that a happy ending is one where getting through day after day may be the greatest success of all.Booklist
From award-winning Canadian novelist Livingston, this is a beautiful and insightful paean to the human spirit and how it can heal.London Free Press
Livingston’s searing story, recovery, tenuous as it often is, is hard-earned, a glimpse, with no guarantees, of the price to be paid for renewal…. full of surprises; its well-drawn characters, their close-to-the-edge dilemmas, the ways in which they seek an elusive recuperation, are sharply depicted.Kirkus Reviews
2015-12-21Following the death of their toddler son, Maggie and Ben Smith struggle to find the emotional space not only to grieve, but also to mend their broken marriage. Livingston (One Good Hustle, 2012, etc.) crafts an achingly fragile portrait of two battered and bruised people. Two-year-old Frankie fell to his death while Ben and Maggie celebrated Ben's birthday with a little Xanax (a perk of Maggie's job tending to old ladies) and red wine. Shattered, Ben has little time to mourn before his younger brother, Cola, shows up in desperate straits, owing money to drug dealers. To make matters worse, their alcoholic and abusive father is in the hospital, testing the limits of Ben's compassion. Unable to silence the guilt-stricken voices in his head, Ben attempts suicide, ending up in a psych ward instead of a grave. A hollow shell, he can't even admit to himself that his name is "Ben." Maggie has moved out but is continually sucked back into the vortex of grief whenever ghostly memories of Frankie scramble onto her lap. Despite dissolving into tears at her job interview, Maggie is offered a job helping the eccentric 80-year-old Lucy McVeigh, a widow fond of spiritualism. Meanwhile, Maggie's brother, Francis, has moved in with her, awaiting rehab. Francis vows every day to recommit to his faith and to his job as a Catholic priest. It's a struggle compounded by not only his homosexuality, but also his love of the bottle, which landed him in the drunk tank and in a starring role, propositioning a cop, in a viral video. As Ben muddles through interviews with his psychiatrist and Maggie negotiates the probing questions posed by the mediums at Lucy's United Church of Spiritualism, Livingston beautifully teases out the bitter humor needed to endure the long shadows of grief. These hearts heal with scar tissue.