This book is hard to read in places. It is a look at how bad racism and prejudice was. It is worth reading to find out the different ways people felt. I think I would have liked the book more if the chapters were longer and there was more of the history of the era written about as well.

This was difficult for me to read, but in a good way. This is a book that should be read by a lot of people. I enjoyed it a lot and it got me to ask a lot of questions

True eye opener to the horrid time of the Jim Crow era. Hard to read at times, but a captivating tale.

Normally I really enjoy books that are written by several different perspectives but The Mercy Seat just didn't grab me. It tells the story of a man who is travelling to an execution to deliver the chair and from the point of view of other people who will be affected by the education. I found the narrative a little too clunky to follow.

This book was very uncomfortable to read but then that means it did the job. It’s never going to be easy reading about such brutality against a young girl, the persecution of a man who may or may not be guilty, and the race relations and racism that creates.

The court cases, the prospect of being on death row and all the attitudes and opinions of the time are tough to take in - they are all true of course which makes it all the more heartbreaking. It’s heart wrenching on so many levels but I was left feeling that it never quite got to the crux of the issues. Maybe less characters ad longer chapters would have improved things and made it more gritty and engaging?
I also felt as if the majority of the opinions were white ones.

The story is not fast paced by any means despite being set across 24 hours. bIt’s as if the world slows down which it would in a case like this. I wanted to hear more of what Will had to say.

A novel to read and discuss however. Important issues and relevant for today.

Set on a single day as a young black man aged just 18 waits to go to the electric chair for a crime he never committed, this is a kaleidoscopic narrative that rotates between a multitude of PoVs, some merely a page or two in length. It's this fragmentation, almost a cliche of contemporary fiction, which brought my rating down. Winthrop' s writing is marked by an admirable precision and clarity, empathy and lack of sensationalism, but the broken pieces of stories mean we're constantly being jostled out of one tale and into another.

There are undoubtedly some standout moments: Will' s consciousness, the final wordless meeting between him and his father - but Winthrop perhaps lets people off with more kindness and sympathy than was actually the case when it came to race in the southern US states in 1943: 3.5 stars.

The Mercy Seat is a very elegant piece of writing. Set in Louisiana, 1943, we visit a small town on the eve of the execution of Will Jones, an 18 year old black man convicted of raping a white girl in her own bedroom. The point of view flits back and forth between various people touched by the impending execution - Will himself, his father, the DA and his family, a couple who run the petrol station, a prison trustee helping to relocate Gruesome Gertie, Father Hannigan... Each character is really clearly delineated; each has his or her own story to tell.

And quite beautifully, the various characters' stories draw parallels with one another. We explore fathers and sons, grief, racism, kindness, religion and, ultimately, the death penalty. Unlike many similar death row novels, this one does not beat the reader over the head with the weight of the message. We see an imperfect society that struggles to live with itself, conflicted in its prejudice and its desire for decency. The novel is devoid of sensation. It is almost humdrum in the processes and tasks that have to be accomplished to bring the weight of the law to bear on the hapless Will Jones.

In very few pages, in short snippets, Elizabeth H Winthrop creates a convincing world that fits perfectly in 1943, but rings uncannily true of modern, landlocked, small-town America. Sure, there are no more Jim Crow laws but all it takes is a casual glance at CNN to see that the law does not operate equally for black and white; for rich and poor. While supreme court judges pontificate in Washington DC, the law is actually applied by sheriffs, DAs and governors appealing to the redneck vote. The Mercy Seat keeps the reader mentally shuttling from history to current day and back again. It is deeply unsettling, showing us us how little social attitudes have changed.

The pacing is fantastic; never too slow and never rushed. We cover an astonishing amount of ground in a 24 hour period but it is manageable and memorable. The reader doesn't need to concentrate to keep track of people because it all fall into place so effortlessly. The ending, just like the
death penalty itself, fails to provide any form of adequate resolution; it leaves the reader spiralling in thought and what-ifs.

The Mercy Seat is not the only death row novel, but it must be one of the classiest.

A beautifully written heart-breaking book
The plot is built round the premise that a black youth has raped a white girl, but the reader knows form the outset that this is not true and that the pair (of age) had a consensual relationship. The black youth has been convicted and is on death row.
The format of the book is set in simple, mini chapters voiced by an individual character. The whole evocative & vividly described story is set over just a couple of days and as the tale unfolds the reader discovers painful truths; Lane’s son is dead but he can’t bring himself to tell his wife; the prosecutor’s family is threatened thus he finds Will guilty; things that we the reader see but the characters they affect don’t. The use of language is incisive & striking, the reader can feel the heat, sense the despair. The deliberate misuse of the title persecutor (i.e. prosecutor) for example is brilliant; an easy mistake for a child, but that is exactly what he has turned into!
Stunning read.