Confession time: Up until last week, I’d never read anything by Toni Morrison. The reason? She’s one of those authors who held a strong intimidation factor for me, a writer whose works I thought I wouldn’t fully understand and therefore not enjoy.

So it was with some anxiety that I put her latest novel, A Mercy, as one of the possible choices for my library book club to read, and it was with some surprise when I saw that they actually chose it as one of their selections. Was I the only one scared to read her books? Apparently so.

Well, I was quite relieved to discover that my fears were all for naught.  It did take me a few pages to get into the flow of the book, and quite possibly there were nuances that eluded me, but I did really enjoy myself and am not only open to reading more of her work, but eager to do so.

A Mercy, set in colonial America in 1686, is told from the point of view of Florens, a young slave girl, with accounts from others in her life – her reluctant owner, a Dutch farmer named Jacob and his wife, Rebekka, their servants, Nina, a Native American whose village was decimated by smallpox; and Sorrow, a woman with an unusual background to complement her peculiar name. Living on the fringes of the wilderness, beyond the pale of colonial society (such as it was), these people, particularly the women, cobble together a codependent yet precarious existence.

The first thing that struck me about the book was how the language had a lyrical quality and read like a piece of poetry rather than a traditional novel. Some of the book club members couldn’t get into the book for that reason, but for me, that was part of its appeal. Another aspect that some of the book club folks took issue with was the use of multiple points-of-view, but I have come to find that I quite enjoy reading books utilizing this technique, because it gives a much more holistic view of the lives and situation of the various characters, rather than just seeing everything through one person’s viewpoint. It is only Florens who is given a direct voice, however; the others are all written by the omniscient third-person narrator, with the exception of the final chapter.

Coming in at a slim 176 pages, Morrison deftly weaves together so many elements it would take other writers several hundred pages to adequately convey: life in the New World, slavery, issues of class and the roots of racism, indentured servitude, women’s lives in the 17th century, religious intolerance, love, and grief. But she fits all of these aspects in – and more – without shortchanging the characters or the reader. The events leading up to the end shocked me more than the actual denouement, but it was no less powerful for being expected, and gave greater resonance to the story. Don’t let its size fool you; there’s much to savor and digest in this sumptuous feast of a book.