Mercury | Bibliotica

About the book, Mercury

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper (September 27, 2016)

Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optometrist in suburban Boston, he is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young thoroughbred with a murky past—arrives at Windy Hill and everything changes.

Mercury’s owner, Hilary, is a newcomer to town who has enrolled her daughter in riding lessons. When she brings Mercury to board at Windy Hill, everyone is struck by his beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv begins to dream of competing again, embracing the ambitions that she had harbored, and relinquished, as a young woman. Her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred escalates to obsession.

Donald may have 20/20 vision but he is slow to notice how profoundly Viv has changed and how these changes threaten their quiet, secure world. By the time he does, it is too late to stop the catastrophic collision of Viv’s ambitions and his own myopia.

Buy, read, and discuss Mercury

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About the author, Margot Livesey

Margot Livesey is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Flight of Gemma Hardy, The House on Fortune Street, Banishing Verona, Eva Moves the Furniture, The Missing World, Criminals, and Homework. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Vogue, and the Atlantic, and she is the recipient of grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. The House on Fortune Street won the 2009 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Born in Scotland, Livesey currently lives in the Boston area and is a professor of fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Connect with Margot

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My Thoughts

I would have been completely satisfied with the first nineteen chapters of this novel, which were all from the perspective of Donald, Scottish ex-pat who moved to America as a child, and never entirely assimilated. His story was interesting and felt complete, and I loved the experience of reading about love, marriage, and parenthood, as well as about the different dynamics of working in a high pressure job, or a small practice (he’s an ophthalmologist) and big cities vs. small towns.

Were his perceptions accurate or was Donald the type to to “see, but not observe” as Sherlock Holmes would phrase it.

If the novel had only included Donald’s POV, we might never have known.

But author Margot Livesey gives us a treat. Embracing the Rashomon effect whole-heartedly, we get to backtrack to the beginning, and see everything from the point of view of Viv, Donald’s brilliant, passionate wife.

It was an interesting twist to an already compelling novel, and while it could have ended up falling flat, under Livesey’s deft hand, it worked amazingly well.

In truth, I liked both Donald and Viv very much, and I really enjoyed reading their story. It’s so rare that a novel begins with a marriage, rather than the lead-up to it, that even the ensuing drama still made me feel like this story was fresh and original.

Of the supporting cast, and there were some great characters, Jack and Claudia chief among them, I would like to say that I believe any of them could conceivably be the central character in their own story, and I greatly appreciated the amount of nuance expressed by each one.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants a compelling story about characters who feel supremely real.

Goes well with pot roast, mashed potatoes and a hearty salad.