book review: a mercy by toni morrison *spoiler alert*

another of my fiction exceptions is literary greats. . .how can you deprive yourself of toni morrison?
anway, so i bought this the day it came out, but i was wary because of her 'stream of consciousness', william faulkner-inspired writing style. you know what i mean, the style that made beloved a much better novel than a movie, because there was sooo much going on that couldn't be translated onto film. . .
anway, this book was very good! it was about slavery, but not really. . .and i love books that have a line in them that tells you where the title comes from. albeit, this one was at the end, but that's part of the 'magic'. the most important voice for the foundation and understanding of who i would call the main character was at the end. it was like all the pieces finally came together right in the last few pages.
the story is told in a few different viewpoints. as the chapter changes, so does the viewpoint. you have the white master/owner, his mail-order bride, and the rest of the 'family': lina--a native american, sorrow--a shipwreck survivor, and florens--the 'main character' whose mother offered her to the white man. this 'offering' is what shapes florens' personality and exposes her vulnerability. although florens is introduced to us as a potentially vulnerable character, you can forget about her vulnerabilities. . .until you can't. she is introduced as a slave child with the hands of a slave, but the feet of a portuguese lady--she has a thing for shoes and refuses to walk barefoot. there are also two white men--indentured servants--whom we learn about but don't really meet until you think all of the 'introductions' are done. there is also the blacksmith, who, while he doesn't have a 'chapter' is still an important character. he is both florens' shoes and shoes removed throughout the story (umm, is he alive and injured? or is he dead?).
the benefit of the time period of this story is that the idea of 'slavery united states' is still forming--the master, jacob vaark, doesn't like 'dealing in flesh' in there are other ways to make oneself rich. he is a kind, but pragmatic man when it comes to people and perhaps is given too much credit for being kind, when sometimes it is just pragmatism that he is displaying. anyway, instead of being a book about slavery, it is a book about several things, you are distracted from the idea of slavery (and it's not easy to distract someone like me from the idea of slavery!) with talk of other things--religion, death, smallpox, and character development--toni definitely makes you reach for scraps to form images of the characters. i still don't think i have even a muddy picture about what florens looks like.
i liked the book and would recommend it, but if i were to waste 3 wishes on this book, I would wish the book was longer, i wish for more character development, and i wish for a happy ending.
too bad t-mo's not a genie!!