Tender Mercies (Masterplots II: Women’s Literature Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Rosellen Brown
- First Published: 1978
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The present
- Setting: A small town in New Hampshire, with flashbacks to New York City and Boston
- Principal Characters: Dan Courser, Laura Shurrock Courser, Jonathan Courser, Hallie Courser, Mr., Carol Shurrock, John Courser
- Genres: Long fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1970’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, New York City, Marriage, Guilt, New England, New Hampshire, Emotions, Accidents, Boston, Disabilities or physically challenged persons, Errors
- Locales: New York, NY, Boston, MA, New Hampshire
Form and Content
Tender Mercies focuses on the aftermath of a terrible accident and its effects on the family involved. The quotations from Virginia Woolf and May Swenson cited at the novel’s beginning pose a question: What happens when, freed of her body, a woman is reduced to the core of herself? The novel explores this question, primarily through the poetic monologues of the victim, Laura, whose body has been reduced to an unfeeling object by the carelessness of her husband of twelve years. Yet Tender Mercies turns an intense and unsentimental light on...
[The entire page is 2045 words long]
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