Mercy

Silber’s alluring 10th novel (after Secrets of Happiness) tenuously connects three generations of New Yorkers. It begins in 1973, when friends Ivan and Eddie return from bumming across Europe to grungy Alphabet City. After Eddie overdoses on heroin, Ivan leaves him in the waiting room of the hospital’s emergency room, convinced he’s dead. From there, Ivan goes on to deal drugs, and he eventually kicks his heroin habit but not the torment caused by abandoning his friend. Meanwhile, Eddie’s onetime girlfriend Ginger finds success as an actor in Los Angeles. A parallel narrative follows Cara, beginning in 1974 when she’s 10 and falls from the roof of her building. Her friend Nina, who witnesses the fall, initially thinks she’s died. Each chapter stands alone, but Silber threads them together with common themes of abandonment, betrayal, unrequited love, and the pull of the past: Eddie leaves Ginger after she gets pregnant by another man, Cara runs away at 16 with her boyfriend who leaves her penniless in Arizona, and Nina is deserted by her own boyfriend when she goes to California for graduate school. In the present, Cara’s daughter, Isabel, now 26, copes with her baggage by working for an NGO fighting destructive global development. With this subtle exploration of relationships, Silber sheds light on how people are shaped by where they come from and who they know. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (Sept.)