The Speed of Mercy by Christy Conlin (good books for high schoolers txt) 📕

unknown terrain. This novel was possible because of a gleaming crew of compassionate people, places, and things. Thank you to the Woodcock Fund through the Writers’ Trust of Canada for support when all seemed lost. Fathomless salty admiration and appreciation to my editor supremo, the tireless Michelle MacAleese, who bravely leapt on the deck of this novel and brought it out of the fog.

Thanks to my publisher, Bruce Walsh, and to all the amazing people at House of Anansi Press, especially Maria Golikova, Sarah MacLachlan, Janie Yoon, Joshua Greenspon, Debby de Groot, Laura Chapnick, Zoe Kelsey, and Curtis Samuel. To Alysia Shewchuk for the exquisite book design. To Linda Pruessen and Chandra Wohleber. The Banff Centre for the Arts, where I had the fortune to work with Cherie Dimaline and Liz Howard. Thank you, Cherie, for telling me to re-read The Stone Angel. Liz, for your grace with poems. Gratitude to the society of writers I met in Banff (I’m here for you, always). To Zsuzsi Gartner for her brilliant mind and for endless encouragement from the West Coast.

Kinnie Copeland, 1961–2020, rest in peace: For teaching me how to swim in the Bay of Fundy when I was a child. To the hearts of Rhys Copeland-Swift, Phillip and Crystal Copeland, and Janice Lutz. Miranda Hill, for keeping me on the splintery log hurtling down the crazy-wild river of what is more commonly known as the final draft. Keiler Roberts, for the hilarious and moving letters, photos, genius comics, and all around sisterhood. Gillian Sircom, for having me at Crosstrees, where I briefly escaped the gerbil wheel of everyday life to work on this book by the wintry sea. Love to the Sircom clan, for kindness and incomparable zest for life. Betsy and Ed Holtz, for hosting us in Madalyn’s Cottage at Salty Pines, where I finished the novel. My dad, who taught me how to rockhound on the Fundy shore. My mum, who taught me how to hear the spirits. My dearest cousin, Eileen Fred Roberts. Thanks to Sarah Berman at Vice Magazine for journalism and cult consultation, and to Portia Clarke for her expertise. My agent, Marilyn Biderman. Intrepid Trevor Corkum who carefully read numerous early drafts. Marianne Ward, for her meticulous insight on my continuing work.

For the abiding friendship of Silmy Abdulah, Millie LaPorte, Shawk Alani, Marie Cameron, Sarah Emsley, Amanda Peters, Gwenyth Dwyn, Jennifer Paterson, Kim Kierans, Sara White, Helen Burns, Catherine and Peter Nathanson, and Joceline Belliveau Doucette. Thanks, Sue Goyette, Megan Leslie, Dr. Mike Rudd, Dr. Jaspal Singh, Dr. Beverly Cassidy, Jan Tait, and Heather Morse for Ohio days. Thank you, Kim Barlow, for your banjo and gospel music. Robyn Carrigan from Cape Breton, for An Ròn/Ann an Caolas Od Odram.

Gratitude to Sylvia Hamilton, a lodestar, and to Andre Fenton, for such generous editorial input, for discussion historical, contemporary, and personal. To Casey Plett for such insightful and empathetic editorial perspective and notes. Katherine Collins, for inspiration, honesty, and a friendship of a lifetime. Beloved Olivia Purohit for carefully reading and sharing insight. The Canada Council for the Arts for support on an early draft.

Biggest briny love to my wonderful children, Milo, Silas, and Angus, for understanding that when I’m staring at the waves I’m really hard at work. To my incredible lighthouse of a husband, Andy Brown, whose presence transforms the stormiest days into magic. To Marshie, rest in peace.

To the misfits and miracles in the world, I love you. Keep healing.

Some Notes

This novel was touched and shaped by: Hysteria: A Memoir of Illness, Strength and Women’s Stories Throughout History by Katerina Bryant; Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne; The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves by Siri Hustvedt; Salt on Your Tongue: Women and the Sea by Charlotte Runcie; Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison; The Erotics of Restraint: Essays on Literary Form by Douglas Glover; “The Development of the Lunatic Asylum in the Maritime Provinces” by Daniel Francis in Acadiensis; Nova Scotia Hospital for the Insane, Halifax, NS, Sixteenth Annual Report of the Medical Superintendent (1874); On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane: With Some Remarks on Insanity and Its Treatment by Thomas Story Kirkbride (1854); Dorothea Lynde Dix, 1802–1887, advocate for indigent mentally ill; Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America’s Premier Mental Hospital; stories from old ladies in waiting rooms and lobbies; “Psychiatry in Canada a Century Ago” by V. E. Appleton, Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal; A Wholesome Horror: Poor Houses in Nova Scotia by Brenda Thompson; “For Them but Never Really Theirs: Finding a Place for the ‘Aged’ within State-Funded Institutions in Nineteenth Century Nova Scotia” by Cheryl Desroches, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association; Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society & Literature by Peter Berresford Ellis; “The Backward” in The Collected Neil the Horse by Arn Saba (Katherine Collins); Poems by Elizabeth Bishop; Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast by Megan Marshall; Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop, Elizabeth Bishop Centenary (2011) Writing Competition edited by Sandra Barry and Laurie Gunn; On Elizabeth Bishop by Colm Tóibín; The Mapmakers’ Legacy: Nineteenth-Century Maps of Nova Scotia by Joan Dawson; The Glory of Woman, or Love, Marriage, and Maternity by Monfort B. Allen and Ameila C. McGregor (1901); Creative and Sexual Science: or Manhood, Womanhood and Their Mutual Interrelations by O. S. Fowler (1875); The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 by Shelia Jeffreys; Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Lives of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher; Historic Black Nova Scotia by Henry Bishop and Bridglal Pachai; “Slavery in English Nova Scotia, 1750–1810” by Harvey Amani Whitfield in Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society, Vol. 13, 2010; “Searching for the Enslaved in Nova Scotia’s Loyalist Landscape” by Catherine M. A. Cottreau-Robins in Acadiensis; “The Canadian Narrative about Slavery Is Wrong” by Charmaine A. Nelson in The Walrus; The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal