A Question of Mercy

The mysterious death of a mentally disabled boy sends his stepsister on the run in this historical novel by the Robert Penn Warren Award–winning author.

Rural North Carolina, 1950s. When young Adam Finney is found dead in a river, his teenaged stepsister, Jess Booker, is sought for questioning by the police. Making a desperate escape, Jess treks and hitchhikes across four states to a boarding house in tiny Lula, Alabama.

Pursued by a mysterious car with a faded “I Like Ike” sticker, she is also haunted by memories of her mother’s early death, her father’s distressing marriage to Adam’s mother, the loving bond she formed with Adam, and her boyfriend Sam’s troubling letters from the thick of combat in the Korean War. In Lula, Jess finds a respite among a curious surrogate family, as well as the strength to return home and face the questions she cannot answer about her stepbrother’s death.

Set in the mid-twentieth-century South, A Question of Mercy examines individual freedom and responsibility, as well as America’s legacy of shameful practices regarding the mentally disabled. Through her vibrant characters and lush southern settings, Elizabeth Cox illuminates the moral, ethical, and seemingly unnatural decisions people face when caring for society’s weakest members.

Foreword by Dos-Passos Prize–winning author Jill McCorkle