The Mercy Step
Mercy is a middle child, born and raised in 1960s Bradford amongst the woollen mills. Home is a draughty dark stone Victorian terraced house on a street called Hill View. Back Home is lush, green Jamaica where four of Mercy’s elder siblings still live and where you can eat avocado pear and star apple. Mercy knows the word for when people go on and on about stuff in the past, and Mummy and Daddy are at their happiest when they are reminiscing about Jamaica. But in the house on the hill, Mercy’s sisters Ruby, (Evil) Evie and Wet-a-bed-Janie are as much a thorn in her side as anything else. Not to mention her spoilt baby brother Devon, Mummy’s precious ‘One Bwoy Pickney’. The nearest thing Mercy has to a best friend is her neighbour Joy, but her real confidant is ‘Dolly’, plastic and inanimate.
Mercy is devoted to her mother, but Mummy is a fundamentalist Christian and to all appearances her own worst enemy. Daddy is a dangerous, threatening presence (except when he’s shimmying to My Boy Lollipop at one of his Big People’s Parties in the cellar living room), who doesn’t seem to like Mercy, let alone love her. As her parents’ marriage collapses, so too do the safe walls of Mercy’s childhood, and she starts to seek refuge at school or at the library. Although as Mummy always tells her, she really needs God’s learning rather than all that ‘book-learning’.
But one night Daddy doesn’t like the expression on Mercy’s face. One night he throws her against a wall. And something changes. The next time Mummy kicks him out, he brings a machete to the house. Mummy drops to her knees and recites a psalm, but Mercy stares him down. Although Mercy may only own one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica (the letter R and the first part of the letter S), she has learned things and she is convinced that the way Daddy treats Mummy isn’t right. She cannot understand the actions of her parents because they barely understand themselves. But if she can’t save her mother, she can try and save herself…
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Reviews
"[The Mercy Step] is dark, humorous, and passionately captures the unique realities of the northern Black experience. Powerfully told from a child’s vantage point, the storytelling is imaginative and animated, yet piercing in all the right places." Kadish Morris, The Observer's Best Debut Novels for 2025
"[A] heart-wrenching, deeply authentic, moving, ... real tear-jerker. Set in 1960s Bradford, the novel follows young Mercy as she finds a way to protect herself in a family that overlooks her best interests. I just wanted to bundle that young girl into my arms and protect her. I adored her precocious voice, her wit and her humour, she is a truly original and brilliantly written protagonist. This is a stunning novel that everyone should read." Nussaibah Younes, 2025 Women's Prize shortlisted author of Fundamentally
"A tender and unsentimental portrait of a young girl navigating a challenging family life. The character of Mercy leaps off the page and I fell in love with her from the start. This novel is heartbreaking and beautiful and funny at the same time. It's a powerful and important story by a hugely talented writer." Diana Anyakwo, author of My Life as a Chameleon
"Distinctive and bold, The Mercy Step is a stunningly imaginative debut. Marcia Hutchinson makes you laugh out loud and breaks your heart on a single page in a book that is part creative magic and part childhood memoir. Little Mercy is defiant, eccentric and completely herself. Prepare to fall in love." Kate Griffin, author of Fyneshade and the Kitty Peck thriller series
"From the soft comfort blanket crimson of the womb through the muddy oranges and browns of a chaotic 1970’s Bradford childhood, The Mercy Step is a highly personal account of what it’s like to grow up in a household haunted by love, fear, violence, joy and prejudice. It is a story of how a childhood innocence dragged through adversity can arrive at a positive place of hope. A diamond-hard empathy illuminates every page of this wonderful book. Prepare to give your heart to Mercy. It could not be in safer hands." Russ Litten, author of Scream If You Want To Go Faster and Swear Down
"A mesmerising debut - intimate, poetic and unforgettable. Marcia Hutchinson's honesty and storytelling left me spellbound." Peter Kalu, poet, playwright and author of One Drop