Small Mercies: A Novel

Mary Pat Fennessy has lived her entire life in Southie, a community that nourishes and sustains her even as it often makes her days unbearable. An overdose took her son’s life, and her daughter, Jules, is dating the unsavory Rum Collins, who is headed for trouble. It’s late summer and the neighborhood is roiling with fury because the U.S. District Court has recently ordered that schools in Boston must desegregate. This ruling involves busing students from the predominantly white Southie to a high school in the predominantly Black Roxbury, and vice versa. Even the all-powerful “protectors” of the neighborhood, Marty Butler and his crew, can’t stop what’s about to happen.

Then, amid all the social turmoil, a Black teenager dies and Jules goes missing. Mary Pat will stop at nothing to find out where she is, even if it means betraying the unspoken rules and loyalties of Southie. When Mary Pat learns things about Jules that she never could have imagined, she—like the other families in Southie who are determined to change their fate regarding the busing—takes matters into her own hands. A tale of fate and violence, hope and despair, Small Mercies is as unrelenting as the heat of one Southie summer… and just as unforgettable.