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    The Mercy Papers
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    The Mercy Papers
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    The Mercy Papers
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Mercy Papers

    Written by Robin Romm

    Narrated by Ann Marie Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    When Robin Romm's The Mother Garden was published, The New York Times Book Review called her "a close-up magician," saying, "hers is the oldest kind [of magic] we know: the ordinary incantation of words and stories to help us navigate the darkness and finally to hold the end at bay." In her searing memoir The Mercy Papers, Romm uses this magic to expand the weeks before her mother's death into a story about a daughter in the moments before and after loss.

    With a striking mix of humor and honesty, Romm ushers us into a world where an obstinate hospice nurse tries to heal through pamphlets and a yelping grandfather squirrels away money in a shoe-shine kit. Untrained dogs scamper about as strangers and friends rally around death. The pillbox turns quickly into a metaphor for order; questions about medication turn to musings about God.

    The Mercy Papers was started in the midst of heartbreak, and not originally intended for an audience. The result is a raw, unsentimental book that reverberates with humanity. Robin Romm has created a tribute to family and an indelible portrait that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost.


    From the Compact Disc edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 6, 2009
    ISBN9781415962589
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for The Mercy Papers

    3.5/5

    29 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Painful topic. So well written, heart wrenching prose. Thank you for your honesty and willingness to share your pain. Look forward to other books by this author.
    • 3/5
      Robin Romm has been dealing with her mother's breast cancer for about a third of her life. Her mother, who was a successful attorney until she became too sick to work, has entered the end stage of the disease and this book is the author's account of mother's final weeks. The memoir is in turns angry and sad. The sadness of course is the grief she feels regarding her mother's death, but most of the anger is directed toward the hospice program that is caring for her mother. Since hospice care is generally discussed with reverence with rarely a negative word said about it, I found this to be an especially thought-provoking part of the book. Oddly enough, one of the most affecting sections of the book has nothing to do with her mother's death, but rather Romm's search for a dog. She seems so desperate for the unconditional love of a dog, possibly a surrogate for the motherly love she is about to lose, that it is heartbreaking to read of her struggles to find one.
    • 4/5
      Fierce, emotional, and painful, this book is Romm's recounting of her mother's last three weeks before dying of breast cancer. Her mother was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer when Romm was only 19. She lived for nine more years. Nine short years. Nine not-nearly-enough years. But then she died, slowly, painfully, and too soon. Romm tells roughly not only of her mother's last three weeks but also the ways in which her mother's dying affected her. She was angry and selfish and bitter, raging against the universe and the hospice nurse and her mother's longtime friends and her father and herself.This is not an easy book to read, despite its slight size. It is packed with incredible depth of emotion, such that sometimes the reader has to take a breather, the very thing that Romm could not do, could not afford to do, in the time of her mother's dying. And as much as this is the memoir of a woman dying, it is also very much the story of Robin Romm, the daughter losing her mother. It is peppered with memories and remembrances, because even before her mother is physically gone, she is no longer the mother Romm knew, instead floating on a sea of pain killers and barely conscious. Romm does not sugar-coat her feelings about the people surrounding her mother. She is oftentimes nasty and snipes at them, either on the page or in fact. She is selfish, not wanting to share her mother, wanting her to be present as long as she can. Throughout, it is clear that she is devastated and fighting no matter the cost. This book is raw, it is angry, it is philosophical, and it probably isn't for everyone. But it is well-written and intense and true too. The final twelve pages of the book, blank because loss never ends, are stark reminders of the hole left behind for Romm and her family, and really for all of us. And those readers who don't shy away from the pain depicted here will find a gem.
    • 5/5
      Romm give a very honest account of her reaction to her mother's final three weeks. She returns to her childhood home to keep vigil with her father and various friends of her mothers and her dog, Mercy. Romm doesn't paint a very flattering picture of herself but I found it to be very honest. She rails against the inevitable demise of her mother as well as how nurses and friends seem to co-opt her loss. A very honest portrait.
    • 4/5
      This is a hard book to read. It is an unflinching look at the loss of a mother by a daughter who is decidedly NOT ready to lose her mother. And yet, it is a very true look. Loss is wrenching - and often we are exposed at our worst. We rail against the inevitably of death. Ms. Romm shares one of those life-defining moments in ways that resonate and repel. We don't want to be there with her - and yet, many of us are there with her in our own life experiences. A very honest feeling book.
    • 2/5
      Well, I'm really sorry her mother died and that she had such a hard time, but the poor mother's dying process was totally mismanaged by her family. If the author hadn't displaced her anger onto the people trying to care for her mother, most particularly the hospice nurse (whom she treated insufferably), the poor woman could have avoided the dreadfully painful death she was forced into. I hope the author has had some help with managing her anger since she wrote the book; and I hope people considering hospice do not read her rantings.Romm is a very good writer, which is why I'm giving this book two stars instead of just one, but I found myself intensely disliking her and her narcissism throughout the book.
    • 3/5
      A raw and anguished story of a young woman watching her mother die. It is not an easy death, it is brutal and ugly and agonizing. I could have written a similar story myself. My mother too, died at age 56 of this horrifying disease. Some years later her sister followed. The author is painfully honest about herself and her feelings during this time. She tells of how it feels to watch strangers caring for her mother. The helpless feeling of not being able to help someone you love is there on every page. The feelings of isolation and fear were brought back to me. I found myself disliking the author for her self centeredness in the face of loss. This is unfair I know, because it is there in all of us. To me it seemed to be an ingral part of her character that was intensified by what was happening. But there was love. It was clear that not only did this mother love her daughter but the daughter cherished her mom. I do not see myself recommending this book to anyone. It was too difficult for me to read, In fact, if I did not feel a responsibility to tell opinion of this book, I would not have made it through. This, though has nothing to do with the book, just my own experience with the same painful situation. Perhaps the book is too honest