The Mercy Seat

by Rilla Askew

Book Overview

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 furious rivalry Fayette is an enterprising... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140265155
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 1.0" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

I was hooked from page one!

I'm not sure if it's the harsh reality of conditions on the frontier of anything or that I felt pity for Mattie, but from page one I was along on the journey in the covered wagon. The moral struggles of survival versus ethics haunts me still and leaves me asking..."What would I do?"

"The Mercy Seat" is a phenomenal accomplishment.

Rilla Askew's fascinating novel succeeds on several levels. She tells a good story -- one that made this reader want to keep turning pages long after bedtime -- and she accurately portrays a way of life and a multi-layered society that has been ignored by most American writers. However, most impressively, she mixes biblical truths, wisdom of the ages, passion, and the creative imperative, to create a morality tale that is all her own. Askew has been compared to William Faulkner and Toni Morrison, but she is unique: Like them, her talent is undeniable, and like them, she writes about forgotten groups of people, but her voice and the rhythms of her language are incomparable. Her writing is informed by the King James Bible, but the beauty and power of "The Mercy Seat" are strong enough to stand on their own merits, without comparison.

Incredible story and especially well-told

This book is well worth your time and in fact will take you out of time and not let you back until you have finished the story. A well wrought novel that ranks with the best.

Gut Wrenching story of 10 yr. old Mattie's trip to Eye Tee.

This novel grabs you from the very first page and doesn't let go until the end. Leaves you wondering how a 10 year old girl can survive such a trip in a covered wagon to a new territory against the odds this child had to face, the heartache of her mother's death,and having to raise her brothers and sisters

This book is not merely a good read. It is an experience.

This is not an attempt at a review, it is comment. Being a native Oklahoman and a kind of shirt-tail historian, I have nibbled forever at the edges of that formative time in the history of Oklahoma and the making of its people, delighting in finding tidbits and hints of how it really was when my world was in the making. Rilla Askew took my hand and led me there. Gave me time to breathe the air and smell the cooking. Let me feel the rough, peeling bark of a windowless cabin's walls, put my hand on the hurt of a beautiful child in the process of being destroyed by the ambitions and defeats of the adults who make up her world. I'm waiting for my memory of it to cool so I can read it again. Visit Mattie, Fate, John. Maybe lay a compassionate hand on their shoulder. Reviews, comparisons, and synopses fail the book. It is not just a good read. It is an experience.