A Mercy by Toni Morrison

It is the 1680's in the United States.  A farmer/trader has carved out a smallholding for himself, after starting in poverty.  He advertises for a wife and is pleasantly surprised with the young, beautiful woman who arrives.  As he is on the road so much, he needs servants to help her run his farm while he is gone.  He doesn't like having male servants, so he has three female ones.

Lina is the oldest, a woman who came to him after being misused in her prior life.  She has no desire for marriage or a man and is devoted to her mistress and Sir as he is known.  The mistress starts off very remote to Lina but as they are left on their own so much and as Lina helps her through her pregnancies and births, and as she grieves with the mistress over the deaths of all her children, they become close.

Sorrow is someone no one knows much about.  She is a white woman who grew up on her father's boat and after he died, was cast ashore with no idea how to survive.  She ended up at Sir's estate after the sons of her rescuers were taking too much interest in her.  Most consider Sorrow to be mentally challenged but she sees the world around her through a different filter than others do. 

Florens is the newest member, a slave girl who Sir accepted as partial payment of a loan rashly given to a plantation owner.  She is only six when she arrives; her mother having pushed her forward when Sir looked over the possible individuals the plantation owner was willing to give up.  Florens is attached to Lina, who sees Florens as the child she'll never have.  The mistress accepts her but also resents having this living child while her own have all died. 

A crisis occurs when smallpox attacks the farm.  Sir is in the process of having a big stately house built.  The pox spreads quickly through the farm's occupants, and it is decided that only the blacksmith who came to build the gates has a chance of healing everyone.  Florens is dispatched on her own to find him and bring him back, even though Lina distrusts him as she suspects that Florens has become infatuated with him.

Morrison has written a haunting tale that not only describes daily life in the time period with owners, indentured servants, slaves and children taken in after death removes their parents.  Slavery is shown for its cruelty and for the sacrifice that slave women often took; pushing their children forward to be taken out of cruel situations when they believe another situation might be better.  Of course the children see it only as rejection and many spend their lives trying to replace that motherly love and the sense of trust that is snatched away.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.