The Mercy Seat

448 pages. A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/FAULKNER AWARD An epic story that takes place on the dusty, remorseless Oklahoma frontier, where two brothers are deadlocked in a fur ious rivalry Fayette is an enterprising schemer hoping to cash in on his brothe r's talents as a gunsmith. John, determined not to repeat the crime that forced both families to flee their Kentucky homes, doggedly follows his tenacious broth er west, while he watches his own family disintegrate. Wondrously told through the wary eyes of John's ten-year-old daughter, Mattie, whose gift of premonition proves to be both a blessing and a curse, The Mercy Seat resounds with the rhyt hms of the Old Testament even as it explores the mysteries of the Native America n spirit world. Sharing Faulkner's understanding of the inescapable pull of fami ly and history, and Cormac McCarthy's appreciation of the stark beauty of the Am erican wilderness, Rilla Askew imbues this momentous work with her tremendous en ergy and emotional range. It is an extraordinary novel from a prodigious talent. Editorial Reviews The Mercy Seat is a powerful novel, rich with biblical all usions and authoritative, haunting depictions of the landscape and life of the A merican West in the second half of the 19th century. The story begins as a young girl, Mattie, is called from sleep to help her father prepare for her family's flight from their Kentucky home, its pie safe and its oak bed frames. Reasons fo r their sudden departure are only slowly revealed and never completely explained . The center of the evolving story is the conflict between Mattie's father and his brother. John Lodi is skilled in the art of blacksmithing and gun making; F ayette Lodi is anxious to use that skill to turn a profit for himself. Although. …