Without Mercy

by RenateDorrestein (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $11.71

  Frank and Phinus have been happily married for fourteen years when a senseless act loses them their only child, their teenage son Jem. From then on they are immersed in a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape. Phinus loses her ability to sleep, and the formerly gentle Frank tries to combat his grief and guilt with obsessive vengefulness which escalates out of control. A weekend visit to a country house hotel is supposed to bring the couple back together, but it erups into a series of escalating bizarre, hilarious confrontations which only emphasizes their estrangement. Dorrestein's novels are always based on a topical social issue familiar from newspaper headlines, which make them provocative and contemporary: In Without Mercy, it is a teenage shooting with echoes of American high school massacres like that at Columbine High in Denver two years ago. This heartbreaking, yet strangely funny, thought-provoking and compelling novel about guilt and grief is by a mistress of suspense who shows us all that hell is not other people as is generally supposed: that there is nothing as terrible as what a person can do to himself.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.22

  Frank and Phinus have been happily married for 14 years when a senseless act loses them their only child, their teenage son Jem. From then on they are immersed in a nightmare from which there seems to be no escape and guilt and grief spiral out of control.