“I am not going to love that thing”: Novel is a gentle yet powerful read
“Works of Mercy” by Sally Thomas. Wiseblood Books. (Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, 2022). 270 pp., $15.00.
Catholics like a good morality play.
I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with this instinct; in a world where sin is so often called by anything other than its name, it’s sometimes a relief to see a story where a character’s vices are so apparent that the character himself comes to embody his favored sin and the damage it can cause. For the record, secular novels are often morality plays, too, even if their morals frequently differ from those in Catholic works. Everyone likes to see the good guys win and the bad guys get their comeuppance, whatever their definitions of “good” and “bad” may be.
The challenge with a morality play is that it tends to flatten the characters. They become symbols, ciphers for narrative meaning, and thereby lose some of their realism. This isn’t always a bad thing; sometimes, a good story requires a character to be more symbolic than flesh-and-blood to move the plot along. Nevertheless, a reader finds oneself gratified upon encountering characters that feel particularly lifelike — people one could meet off the street, or in the pew at Sunday Mass. Thus, it requires a particularly deft hand to create characters who both pulse with realism as well as serve a moral narrative.
Sally Thomas, in her novel “Works of Mercy,” creates a cast of such individuals — first sketching them out with one or two details, luring the reader toward the temptation of rendering an easy judgment, and then filling in the figures, layering shades of personality like watercolor.
The viewpoint character of the story, Kirsty Sain, is an excellent example of this. We are introduced to her first as a housekeeper, then as a widow, a Scottish American immigrant, a former daughter, a former student, a former wife, and possibly a future neighbor and friend. She is both a character in her own right and the reader’s narrative conscience. One of the most compelling quotes in the story, “I am not going to love that thing,” are spoken by her about a blind stray kitten given to her by the local handyman, Wylie, but the words can just as easily be applied to her attitude toward others. A good Catholic and a pious woman, Kirsty nonetheless has the same flaw that so many of us possess: a quickness to judge others, and judge them unworthy of our mercy — including, sometimes, ourselves.
Mercy is certainly the operative word of the novel. As Thomas’ characters unfold themselves to the reader, one is struck by the great compassion that the author shows to them. From Kirsty herself, a widow who prefers loneliness to other people’s company; to Wylie, the handyman, well-intentioned and sometimes gratingly not self-aware; to Maricruz, Wylie’s undocumented neighbor, and her son, Miguel, who is disabled; to the Malkins, the chaotic but loving family hurtling comet-like toward tragedy; to Father Schuyler, the radically traditional young priest who swiftly makes enemies in the town — the reader is invited to consider each of them in their full humanity, neither wicked nor saintly, but complex people who need, and have a right to, the reader’s love. Nobody, the work seems to insist, is a mere stereotype; we all contain infinite worlds.
If one is the kind of reader to categorize characters into symbols of vice and virtue, as this reviewer admittedly is, then “Works of Mercy” serves as a sorely needed, but gentle, chiding. Given how much Catholic and secular readers alike love a good morality play, Thomas has done the near-impossible: created a story with the moral of not treating real people like characters in a moral story. Thankfully, she delivers her message with just as much mercy to the reader as she shows her cast.
Reichert is publications administrative coordinator at The Catholic Spirit. She can be reached at reichertm@archspm.org.
