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Overview
At first glance, Dr. LucyWeiss looks like a typical high-achieving, upper-middle-class working mother who is raising two children in the suburbs with her husband. But having overcome a difficult childhood in foster care, Lucy knows firsthand what it is like to grow up in the margins. Now a pediatrician, she finds herself working with at-risk patients and their families. Every day she must decide whether a parent’s actions are so incompetent—or so clueless—that a child is in danger. As she moves between her disparate worlds—from worrying about her own daughter enduring the social pressures of adolescence to worrying about parents struggling with drugs and impossible living situations—Lucy must judge herself as a parent, critique other parents, and also deal with the echoes of her childhood.Through it all, she keeps the balance with humor and sympathy. The Mercy Rule is a compassionate and funny novel sure to resonate with those who know the joys and challenges of taking care of children.
Synopsis
At first glance, Dr. LucyWeiss looks like a typical high-achieving, upper-middle-class working mother who is raising two children in the suburbs with her husband. But having overcome a difficult childhood in foster care, Lucy knows firsthand what it is like to grow up in the margins. Now a pediatrician, she finds herself working with at-risk patients and their families. Every day she must decide whether a parent’s actions are so incompetent—or so clueless—that a child is in danger. As she moves between her disparate worlds—from worrying about her own daughter enduring the social pressures of adolescence to worrying about parents struggling with drugs and impossible living situations—Lucy must judge herself as a parent, critique other parents, and also deal with the echoes of her childhood.Through it all, she keeps the balance with humor and sympathy. The Mercy Rule is a compassionate and funny novel sure to resonate with those who know the joys and challenges of taking care of children.
The Washington Post - Ron Charles
Perri Klass is a practicing pediatrician who understands the murky risks of judging a mother's care. The Mercy Rule, her sixth work of fiction, is an insightful novel in stories about a doctor who runs a clinic in Boston for children who are in state custody—or about to be…As a doctor, Klass must know the body inside and out; these stories show that, as a writer, she knows the heart and soul just as well.
Editorials
Ron Charles
Perri Klass is a practicing pediatrician who understands the murky risks of judging a mother's care. The Mercy Rule, her sixth work of fiction, is an insightful novel in stories about a doctor who runs a clinic in Boston for children who are in state custody—or about to be…As a doctor, Klass must know the body inside and out; these stories show that, as a writer, she knows the heart and soul just as well.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Klass (Treatment Kind and Fair) again explores the dramas, large and small, of parenting and medicine in an enjoyable if nearly plotless novel. A former foster child who was adopted by her sixth-grade teacher, Lucy Weiss is a pediatrician at a clinic specializing in foster kids. Lucy's deep (and occasionally unprofessional) devotion to her work brings her into contact and conflict with mothers like charismatic Delia, who eventually abandons her three kids-each named after one of the Von Trapp children. In Lucy's own family, her somewhat absent professor husband begs off of birthday party and soccer duties, leaving her as primary parent to precocious 10-year-old Isabel and possibly autistic six-year-old Freddy. Freddy's difficulties (an obsession with statistics and numbers, and stunted social abilities among them) are a recurring but unresolved thread, while an ethically questionable decision Lucy makes regarding Delia's kids lacks punch. The characters are wonderfully drawn-Lucy's angst is palpable throughout-and though there isn't much of a story arc, the heartfelt portrayal of contemporary parenting is involving, particularly so for readers who work with children. (July)
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