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The acclaimed novel by the author of The Why of Things tackles “the Deep South during the Gothic worst of Jim Crow times . . . truly a bravura performance” (Geoffrey Wolff). “One of the finest writers of her generation,” and author of three previously acclaimed novels, Elizabeth H. Winthrop delivers a brave new book that will launch her distinguished career anew (Brad Watson). On the eve of his execution, eighteen-year-old Willie Jones sits in his cell in New Iberia awaiting his end. Across the state, a truck driven by a convict and his keeper carries the executioner’s chair closer. On a nearby highway, Willie’s father Frank lugs a gravestone on the back of his fading, old mule. In his office the DA who prosecuted Willie reckons with his sentencing, while at their gas station at the crossroads outside of town, married couple Ora and Dale grapple with their grief and their secrets. As various members of the township consider and reflect on what Willie’s execution means, an intricately layered and complex portrait of a Jim Crow era Southern community emerges. Moving from voice to voice, Winthrop elegantly brings to stark light the story of a town, its people, and its injustices. The Mercy Seat is a brutally incisive and tender novel from one of our most acute literary observers. “Artful and succinctly poetic . . . A worthy novel that gathers great power as it rolls on propelled by its many voices.”—The New York Times Book Review “A miracle of a novel, with rapid-fire sentences that grab you and propel you to the next page . . . It’s a breakout. It’s a wonder.”—Dallas Morning News
Set on September 12, 2001, THE MERCY SEAT continues Neil LaBute's unflinching fascination with the often-brutal realities of the war between the sexes. In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. A man and a woman explore the choices now available to them in an existence different from the one they had lived just the day before. Can one be opportunistic in a time of universal selflessness? "There is no playwright on the planet these days who is writing better than Neil LaBute ... THE MERCY SEAT is ... the work of a master." --John Lahr, The New Yorker "An intelligent and thought-provoking drama that casts a less-than-glowing light on man's dark side in the face of disaster ... The play's energy lies in LaBute's trademark scathing dialogue." --Robert Dominguez, Daily News "Though set in the cold, gray light of morning in a downtown loft with inescapable views of the vacuum left by the twin towers, THE MERCY SEAT really occurs in one of those feverish nights of the soul in which men and women lock in vicious sexual combat, as in Strindberg's DANCE OF DEATH and Edward Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?" --Ben Brantley, The New York Times "[A] powerful drama ... LaBute shows a true master's hand in gliding us amid the shoals and reefs of a mined relationship." --Donald Lyons, New York Post "Uncomfortable yet fascinating ... THE MERCY SEAT makes for provocative theater -- sharp, compelling and more than a little chilling." --Michael Kuchwara, Newsday "LaBute's intriguing [new play] is most compelling when it is daring to look into [a] character's heart to explore the way self-interest, given the opportunity, can swamp all our nobler instincts." --Charles Isherwood, Variety "In THE MERCY SEAT ... LaBute has given us his most compelling portrait of male inner turmoil." --Brendan Lemon, Financial Times "LaBute [is] the dark shining star of stage and film morality." --Linda Winer, Newsday "Sharply funny and incisive SEAT is not a response to September 11, but a response to the response to September 11 -- an emotionally jarring consideration of the self-serving exploitation of tragedy for personal gain ... Perhaps it's time we stop thinking of LaBute as a mere provocateur, a label that condescends to an artist of grand ambition and a nimble facility with language. With this gripping ... new drama, he probes deeper than he ever has before." --Jason Zinoman, Time Out New York "A nihilistic yet brutally honest work ... As complex and unfathomable as human motivations ... THE MERCY SEAT is haunting." --David A. Rosenberg, Backstage "LaBute risks offending contemporary sensibilities by using a historic tragedy as his turning point for a drama regarding a morally empty American ... [THE MERCY SEAT is] controversial and compelling." --Michael Sommers, The Star-Ledger "LaBute ... is holding up a pitiless mirror to ourselves. We may not like what we see, but we can't deny that -- if only in some dark corner of our soul -- it is there." --Jacques le Sourd, The Journal News
'Mesmerising, macabre and magnificent. The Mercy Chair is truly terrifying, laugh-out-loud funny, and impossibly clever. Poe and Tilly are unstoppable' Chris Whitaker 'Washington Poe is a brilliant creation, from one of the finest and most inventive crime writers of today' Peter James ---- Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin . . . Washington Poe has a story to tell. And he needs you to listen. You'll hear how it started with the robber birds. Crows. Dozens of them. Enough for a murder . . . He'll tell you about a man who was tied to a tree and stoned to death, a man who had tattooed himself with a code so obscure, even the gifted analyst Tilly Bradshaw struggled to break it. He'll tell you how the man's murder was connected to a tragedy that happened fifteen years earlier when a young girl massacred her entire family. And finally, he'll tell you about the mercy chair. And why people would rather kill themselves than talk about it . . . Poe hopes you've been paying attention. Because in this story, nothing is as it seems . . . ---- 'Craven renders the darkness of the human condition with immense skill, ratcheting the tension to a nails-on-chalkboard pitch. Don't turn out the lights.' Vaseem Khan MORE PRAISE FOR MW CRAVEN: 'The kind of novel that inspired me to write fiction in the first place. A guaranteed great time.' Chris Brookmyre 'Darkly entertaining' The Telegraph 'If you haven't read any M.W. Craven yet, fix that immediately' S. A. Cosby 'I've been following M.W. Craven's Poe/Tilly series from the very beginning, and it just gets better and better' Peter Robinson 'Poe and Tilly books are a joy' Steve Cavanagh 'In Tilly and Poe, M.W. Craven has created a stand-out duo who are two of the most compelling characters in crime fiction in recent years' Fiona Cummins 'Darkly comic . . . Thrilling' The Independent 'Clever, sophisticated, utterly gripping thriller from one of the best writers around' Mari Hannah 'Craven has unleashed Ben Koenig into the thriller world. Long may he raise hell in the pages. A superb thriller that will have everyone talking, and gasping.' David Baldacci 'Paging Lee and Andrew Child: you've got company' The Times
In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.
Attorney Theo Buchanan - brother of seasoned FBI agent Nick Buchanan, the hero of HEARTBREAKER - is in New Orleans to receive an award for his work with the Department of Justice. When he becomes unexpectedly ill at the gala, a beautiful stranger rushes him to the hospital and saves his life. The woman - a brilliant surgeon named Michelle Renard - intrigues Theo, but before he can learn more about her, she leaves New Orleans and returns to her small clinic in Louisiana. Theo seeks her out to thank her, but finds more than he bargained for. When he arrives in the little town of Bowen, he discovers that Michelle is being followed, her house has been broken into and her clinic destroyed. Theo is in a position to return the ultimate favour. Michelle saved his life...now can he save hers?
Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere? In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He reveals the history of chairs to be a social history--of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America--the Barcalounger--traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs--they're all here. The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.
Expanding on his original book, 'The Mercy Seat', Nigel Bovey investigates the place of the mercy seat in Salvationist worship and witness.
In some states by law, in others by tradition, judges imposing a sentence of death complete the grim ritual with the words "May God have mercy on your soul." In 1982, in Grundy, Virginia, a young miner named Roger Coleman was sentenced to death for the murder of his sister-in-law. Ten years later, the sentence was carried out, despite the extraordinary efforts of Kitty Behan, a brilliant and dedicated young lawyer who devoted two years of her life to gathering evidence of Coleman's innocence, evidence so compelling that media around the world came to question the verdict. The courts, ruling on technicalities, refused to hear the new evidence and witnesses. Finally, the governor of Virginia ordered a lie-detector test to be administered on the morning of Coleman's scheduled execution, and in a chair that to Coleman surely looked like nothing so much as an electric chair. In John Tucker's telling, this story is an emotional and unforgettable roller-coaster ride from the awful night of the crime to the equally awful night of the execution. Perhaps it was not Roger Coleman whose soul was in need of God's mercy, but the judges, prosecutors, and politicians who procured his death.