Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
A Mercy cover art

A Mercy

Written by: Toni Morrison
Narrated by: Toni Morrison
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $26.32

Buy Now for $26.32

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

A powerful tragedy distilled into a jewel of a masterpiece by the Nobel Prize - winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier.

In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and class divisions, prejudice and oppression were rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery and race hatred were planted and took root.

Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, with a small holding in the harsh north. Despite his distaste for dealing in "flesh," he takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt from a plantation owner in Catholic Maryland. This is Florens, "with the hands of a slave and the feet of a Portuguese lady." Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from a handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved.

There are other voices: Lina, whose tribe was decimated by smallpox; their mistress, Rebekka, herself a victim of religious intolerance back in England; Sorrow, a strange girl who's spent her early years at sea; and finally the devastating voice of Florens' mother. These are all men and women inventing themselves in the wilderness.

A Mercy reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and of a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

Acts of mercy may have unforeseen consequences.

©2008 Toni Morrison (P)2008 Random House Audio

Featured Article: 10 Best Toni Morrison Audiobooks for Discovering an Icon

Few authors are as universally beloved as Toni Morrison, and for good reason. The Lorain, Ohio native dominated the literary scene from the moment she burst onto the stage in 1970, with her debut novel The Bluest Eye. A packed career of novels, poetry, short fiction, children's books, nonfiction and plays followed, along with a stack of awards to boot. A Nobel Prize? A Pulitzer Prize? The first female African American editor in the history of celebrated publishing company Random House? You name it, Toni Morrison has won it and done it. With such an incredible body of work in audio, it can be difficult to know where to begin. For longtime fans of Morrison and newcomers alike, we’ve gathered a selection of some of her greatest. Here are the best Toni Morrison audiobooks to add to your library today.

More from the same

What listeners say about A Mercy

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A vivid account of human experience

struggled to finish yet loved it. an impactful work from the genius herself. the interview at the end was an honour to listen to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!