I got a chance to meet Claudia at one of her book launches, and she is a warm, down-to-earth person who filled the room with hugs, laughter, and soul. We will be talking again soon when I interview her about The Mercy Journals. The novel offers a view into the near future after climate change results in a far different world than the one we know today, a world in which Donald Trump’s horror wall comes alive, a world in which the surreal, bizarre, and even beautiful begin to triumph via character redemption and hope.
This unsettling dystopian novel is set thirty years in the future, in the wake of a third world war. One survivor, a soldier nicknamed Mercy, is haunted by lingering memories of his family. But when he travels into the wilderness with his brother Leo to look for his missing sons, the line between truth and lies becomes indistinguishable, and Mercy’s own moral code, destroyed by war, returns into play. Set against a fantastical landscape, The Mercy Journals explores the parameters of personal morality and forgiveness.
-Goodreads
Claudia Casper is the author of the novels The Reconstruction and The Continuation of Love by Other Means, which was short-listed for the Ethel Wilson BC Book Prize, and most recently, The Mercy Journals. She is writing the screenplay for a 3D feature film France/Canada coproduction of The Reconstruction.
Goodreads Reviews
3.6 rating based on 327 ratings (all editions)
ISBN-10: 1551526336
ISBN-13: 9781551526331
Goodreads: 27130421
Author(s): Publisher:
Published: //
This unsettling novel is set thirty years in the future, in the wake of a third world war. Runaway effects of climate change have triggered the collapse of nation/states and wiped out over a third of the global population. One of the survivors, a former soldier nicknamed Mercy, suffers from PTSD and is haunted by guilt and lingering memories of his family. His pain is eased when he meets a dancer named Ruby, a performer who breathes new life into his carefully constructed existence. But when his long-lost brother Leo arrives with news that Mercy's children have been spotted, the two brothers travel into the wilderness to look for them, only to find that the line between truth and lies is trespassed, challenging Mercy's own moral code about the things that matter amid the wreckage of war and tragedy.
Set against a sparse yet fantastical landscape, The Mercy Journals explores the parameters of personal morality and forgiveness at this watershed moment in humanity's history and evolution.
Claudia Casper's previous novels include The Reconstruction (St. Martin's Press).
