Synopses & Reviews
From lowcountry writer William Baldwin comes a new edition of his 1993 Lillian Smith Award-winning novel, The Hard to Catch Mercy. Including a new introduction by the author, this Southern Revivals edition makes available once more a story that touches on the issues of religion, race, and coming-of-age in the post-Civil War South, when the lines between these issues were not always clear. Set in fictional Cedar Point, a small southern community in the early 1900s, The Hard to Catch Mercy is told through the eyes of a young boy, Willie T., who is forced to confront the changing world around him. Including a cast of incredibly outlandish characters, Baldwin's novel is a wild, darkly comic tale rich with trick mules, Christian voodoo, fire, brimstone, first love, death, and the end of the world as Willie T. knows it.
Review
"A fine large-scale send up of the Great Southern Novel." --New York Times
Review
"All readers of Southern fiction will enjoy this one." --Library Journal
Review
"Southern story-telling at its best."--Richmond Times-Dispatch
Review
"A work of art." --Raleigh News and Observer
Review
"[A] funny, sad, gentle, violent story . . . The adventures of Willie T. are so exciting a reader can scarcely get from page to page fast enough." --Detroit Free Press
Synopsis
A Southern Revival edition of an award-winning coming-of-age story in the post-Civil War South
About the Author
William Baldwin, a lifelong resident of the South Carolina lowcountry, has been a builder, shrimper, oysterman, teacher, historian, poet, biographer, and novelist. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, most recently The Unpainted South: Carolina's Vanishing World--a collection of songs, photographs, and poems--and the novel Charles Town.