Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781416567929)

In her searing memoir, Robin Romm magically expands the weeks before her mother's death into a story about a daughter in the moments before and after loss.

With a striking mix of humor and honesty, Romm ushers us into a world where an obstinate hospice nurse tries to heal through pamphlets and a yelping grandfather squirrels away money in a shoe-shine kit. Untrained dogs scamper about as strangers and friends rally around death, offering sympathy as they clamor for attention. The pillbox turns quickly into a metaphor for order; questions about medication turn to musings about God. The mundane and spiritual melt together as Romm reveals the sharp truths that lurk around every corner and captures, with great passion, the awe, fear, and fury of a daughter losing her mother.

The Mercy Papers was started in the midst of heartbreak, and not originally intended for an audience. The result is a raw, unsentimental book that reverberates with humanity. Robin Romm has created a tribute to family and an

Author: Robin Romm
ISBN-10: 1416567925
ISBN-13: 9781416567929
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Language: English
Published: 12/29/2009
Pages: 224
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 01/03/2010 pg. 20