Book

The mercy seat : a novel / Elizabeth H. Winthrop.

ISBN: 9780802128188 (hardcover) :
Physical Description: 258 pages ; 22 cm
Edition: First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York : Grove Press, 2018.
Copyright: &copy;2018.

Winthrop, Elizabeth Hartley, 1979- (author.).

Summary:

On the eve of his execution, eighteen-year-old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his end. Across the state, a truck driven by a convict and his keeper carries the executioner's chair closer. On a nearby highway, Willie's father Frank lugs a gravestone on the back of his fading, old mule. in his office, the DA who prosecuted Willie reckons with his sentencing, while at their gas station at the crossroads outside of town, married couple Ora and Dale grapple with their grief and their secrets. As various members of the township consider and reflect on what Willie's execution means, an intricately layered and complex portrait of a Jim Crow-era Southern community emerges.