Stuff
Product Details
Washington Square Press, June 2006
Trade Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN-10: 0743278828
ISBN-13: 9780743278829
Description
Two strands: first the story of Razi Nolan, growing up in New Orleans in the 1920s, smart, fearless, set on breaking the comfortable family mould by making a career as a doctor. Then she falls in love with Andrew O'Connell and her plans become complicated. She is never able to tell Andrew what she has decided about her future as, one summer morning, she accidentally drowns. By choice, and from where she narrates, she stays between this world and the unknown; every memory of her life remains perfectly intact.
More than seventy years later, Razi finds Andrew's once-treasured bookcase at a garage sale. She watches a young couple take it home, Amy and Scott, burdened with secrets of their own. As their once close relationship unravels, Razi remembers her past with Andrew and how she comes to understand what their love ultimately taught her, how he coped after her death, and how the story of Amy and Scott reflects so much of her own.
Read more:
Browse Inside The Mercy of Thin AirHow did you come to write this book?
In the early 1990s, I worked for a management consulting firm with a team of 20 men. One day, a teammate pressured me to get a presentation ready for him early. I turned to him and said, “If you don’t stop bugging me, when I die, I’ll come back and poltergeist you.” He looked at me like I was crazy (but he did leave me alone), and I wondered what it would be like to be an entity that goes around wreaking havoc. What an interesting novel that would make…. I did nothing with the idea for years, until I decided to start writing again in my late 20s. I took a short story writing class and needed to come up with something for my first assignment. I returned to that idea. However, within a matter of days, Razi’s character came into being, and the story took shape in a way I didn’t intend or expect. I began my research on the south in the 1920s and Razi’s progressive interests. The other core characters--Andrew, Twolly, Amy, Scott, and Chloe--all made their appearances in the short story. And I knew all along it was supposed to be a novel. Although I never thought I’d write a book like The Mercy of Thin Air, I guess it was destined to get written. It always had a peculiar volition.
"Ronlyn Domingue's debut novel is an ethereal and eternal love story with images so luminous they lift off the paper. The Mercy of Thin Air will haunt you long after the last page is turned."
-- Paula Wall, national bestselling author of The Rock Orchard
"With lucid supple prose, Ronlyn Domingue weaves a gossamer tale suspended between two worlds. Readers will find it difficult to let go of this moving debut by a remarkable talent well on her way to a distinguished career."
-- James Wilcox, author of Heavenly Days
"In The Mercy of Thin Air, Raziela Nolan - a ghost - spins vivid portraits of the world she left, and the world she isn't allowed to join, reminding us that there is the finest of lines between present and past, between life and death, between love and regret. This is that rarest of first novels - a truly original voice, and a truly original story."
-- Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Vanishing Acts and My Sister's Keeper
"Like The Lovely Bones, Ronlyn Domingue's own first novel makes the reader feel as if he's died and gone to heaven. The Mercy of Thin Air should enjoy a similarly long and happy life."
-- James Gordon Bennett, author of The Moon Stops Here
"Luminous, wise, tender, passionate, and compassionate, this book is special. Razi is a rare character, and her story opens like the petals of a flower. She makes me understand, all over again, the redemptive power of love. One to treasure."
-- Posie Graeme-Evans, author of The Exiled
"Debut novelist Domingue weaves a tapestry of lost spirits and misplaced loves."
-- Kirkus Reviews
"[An] amazing first novel.... Razi is so enchanting that readers will gladly follow her anywhere. Filled with vivid descriptions of scents, sounds, and marvelous human sensations that people take for granted and that spirits can only wistfully recall, this is a novel that gets under one's skin. Mere mortals can only hope that Domingue has more stories to tell."
-- Library Journal (starred review)
Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2009
...contributors who published books this year, including Suzanne Burns ("Misfits and Other Heroes", Ron Currie, Jr. ("Everything Matters!"), Ronlyn Domingue ("The Mercy of Thin Air"), D.R. Haney ("Banned for Life"), Tao Lin ("Shoplifting from ...
