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    Mercury: A Novel
    Mercury: A Novel
    Mercury: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Mercury: A Novel

    Written by Margot Livesey

    Narrated by Derek Perkins and Nicol Zanzarella

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    A taut emotional thriller about love, obsession and the secrets that pull a family apart.

    Donald believes he knows all there is to know about seeing. An optician in suburban Boston, he rests assured that he and his wife, Viv, who works at the local stables, will live out quiet lives with their two children. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young racehorse—enters their lives and everything changes.

    Viv’s friend Hilary has inherited Mercury from her brother after his mysterious death—he was riding Mercury late one afternoon and the horse returned to the stables alone. When Hilary first brings Mercury to board at the stables everyone there is struck by his beauty and prowess, particularly Viv. As she rides him, Viv dreams of competing with Mercury, rebuilding the ambitions of grandeur that she held for herself before moving to the suburbs. But her daydreams soon morph into consuming desire, and her infatuation with the thoroughbred quickly escalates to obsession.

    By the time Donald understands the change that has come over Viv, it is too late to stop the impending fate that both their actions have wrought for them and their loved ones. A beautifully crafted, riveting novel about the ways in which relationships can be disrupted and, ultimately, destroyed by obsession, secrets and ever-escalating lies.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 27, 2016
    ISBN9780062571717
    Author

    Margot Livesey

    Margot Livesey is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Flight of Gemma Hardy, The House on Fortune Street, Banishing Verona, Eva Moves the Furniture, The Missing World, Criminals, and Homework. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Vogue, and the Atlantic, and she is the recipient of grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. The House on Fortune Street won the 2009 L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award. Born in Scotland, Livesey currently lives in the Boston area and is a professor of fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

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    Reviews for Mercury

    3.5/5

    48 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      a great disappointment. terrible plot made worse by stupid twists. unlikeable characters. strong, strong attachments to horses which i am not interested in.
    • 3/5
      Mercury by Margot Livesey is a 2016 Harper publication. This book has cropped up on my radar several times in the last several weeks. I have so many books in my TBR pile, I really didn’t need to add another library book on top of that, plus readers seemed to have a mixed response to it. Yet, every time I read the blurb, I found myself intrigued more and more, so I relented and checked it out. The phrase ‘compulsively readable’ came to mind when I started reading this book. Donald’s first person narrative sucked me into the story right away and I just couldn't stop reading. As the clever cover art hints at, Donald is an optometrist, originally from Scotland, married with two children. But, when his father passes away after a lengthy illness, Donald experiences intense grief, while his wife, Viv, seems to experience relief. Not only that, a new love has entered Viv’s life… no, it’s not another man… it’s a horse. Viv also get a turn at telling her side of things, but her voice is not as heartfelt, or as poignant as Donald’s and of course by the time she gets her say, I knew things about her that made it hard to sympathize. While the book is placed in the mystery, crime, thriller category, it’s not just about the crime. It’s about what leads up to it that makes the book hard to put down. Donald is great at dropping little ‘If only I had known then, what I know now’ statements that gives the reader hints and causes much speculation, creating an atmosphere of foreboding. This is another one of those books, though, that if you are anticipating the usual thriller format, you will find yourself becoming very frustrated. It is not until very deep into the book that the crime is revealed, along with the motive. From there the fallout revolves around the couple's crisis of conscience. For me, it’s a portrait of a marriage, as much as it is about a crime. The secrets they keep, the complacency and neglect that leads, in no small part to jealousy, obsession, and a need to recapture something lost, and eventually about accountability. While this is interesting if you enjoy breaking down the complexities of marriage, it is a slow moving story, and the ending is not at all satisfying. I have mixed feelings about the book, overall. It started off strong, but lost significant ground during the last quarter of the book and ended up falling a little flat. If you are looking for a traditional crime novel, this one might not be exactly what you are looking for, but it's worth a look if you are a fan of this author or you enjoy reading contemporary fiction or literature. Overall 3 stars
    • 3/5
      Mercury, Margot Livesey, author; Derek Perkins, Nicol Zanzarella, narratorsThis book was about a host of characters that never seemed to grow up. Even when they became adults and parents, they reverted to childish behavior, using outright lies and lies of omission, secrets, and excuses to avoid responsibility for their irresponsible behavior, in order to satisfy their own wishes. Often, they had no regard for the outcomes, never even thinking about what they might be. Self-serving would be an accurate description of most of them; selfish would be an accurate description of the rest. They seemed to be frequently disappointed with something that had affected their lives and had a difficult time adjusting to most situations with grace.Donald opened the narrative by revealing his background, first in Scotland and later on in Massachusetts. Employment moved his parents from Europe to America, and after some years of traveling back and forth, they decided to remain. Don had a very close friend, Robert, but unable to cope with the idea of the move and separation from his friend, he left his letters unread and unanswered. This behavior became a character trait as he grew up. Avoiding his problems by pretending they didn’t exist became a habit. Donald began his career as an Ophthalmologist when Viv, a mutual fund manager met him, serendipitously, on a train. Sometime later, they were married. Don’s father, who had Parkinson’s Disease, took a turn for the worse and Don decided to move closer to his parents, change careers and open a business. He became an Optometrist. His father was a stickler for following rules, a whistleblower at times, regardless of the consequences, and his mother was devoted to him. Don was devoted to both of them. After his father died, Don became the caretaker of his charming parrot named Nabokov. I thought the bird would have had more of an impact on the story than it did, but the parrot did provide a lightness to the tale. Viv’s parents were divorced. They lived on opposite sides of America. She was not close to either of them. Don and the children were her everything. Viv had never wanted to live in Suburbia with the Republicans and the rednecks, but she agreed to try it. As a young girl, she had loved horses and had been a fairly good rider. After obtaining a job at a stable, working with a close childhood friend, Claudia, she became increasingly involved with one particular horse named Mercury. Perhaps, because of the lack of closeness she had with her parents, and the growing distance between Don and her, she became obsessed with a magnificent horse she wished to train and enter into competitions. Mercury was the bay owned by Hilary whose daughter Diane was a patient of Don’s. Hilary had inherited the horse after her brother Michael died. Although she did not ride him, she arranged to have him properly cared for at the stable run by Claudia and Viv. It was how she kept her connection to her brother alive. Hilary also knew Don’s very good friend Jack, and as events unfolded, all of their lives would be severely impacted by their selfish needs, their secrets and their lies. None of them seemed to fully embrace the idea of sacrifice or loyalty, but rather they harvested the seeds of envy and watched them grow. After Don’s father passed away, he grew ever more distant at home, sometimes even fantasizing about another woman. Although he appeared to be listening and engaging with his family, he was really distracted and paying little attention to their messages. Although Viv sensed his shutting down, she was so wrapped up in her own needs, she did little to help him. They were both traveling in opposite directions and they grew further apart as she grew closer to the horse she had fallen in love with. This overpowering love had a powerful effect on all of the characters as the story developed.Without revealing more of the story than necessary, suffice it to say that it seemed to be about choices. How do we make them and why do we make them? To what lengths will we go to satisfy our own needs? How damaging are secrets and lies to a relationship? Is it possible to forgive someone after you feel betrayed by them? Which characters are more forgiving than others? Why are some characters able to forgive and some unable to do the same? Which choice was the worst one in the story? It is also about relationships, those with parents, siblings, and friends. What kind of loyalty is owed to each? In addition, there seemed to be a narrative that pitted instability vs. criminality, loyalty vs. honesty. Was there any evidence of any character actually changing as they grew up or were they all simply stuck in their own childhood? They had egocentric views of themselves, seemed preoccupied with the detritus of their youth, their sad memories, and never seemed to have truly moved on as adults. Why is the character Jack blind? What does he represent? Is he the catalyst, the character that reveals the others’ strengths and weaknesses? Charlie was a young spoiled girl who also loved horses. What purpose did she serve in the story? Was it to point out that Viv never grew up or that young and old were equally selfish? In this novel, in the end, was it better to tell the truth or to lie? Which act would have hurt fewer people? Which choice would have had worse consequences? How did Robert’s choice, as an adult, regarding Donald’s dilemma, compare to his assessment of choices in Tristan and Isolde? Was Hilary’s assessment of Rick’s responsibility to her fair or selfish? Because the story is told in successive alternate parts, first Don’s and then Viv’s, it is of necessity a bit redundant, and sometimes the novel’s pace grew slow. Overall, though, it was an interesting read for a book group to discuss as the misinterpretation of events led to mistaken conclusions with disastrous results.The narrator of the male character, Don, was excellent, reading the story with the appropriate amount of expression without making himself the focus. He allowed the character to develop slowly and authentically. The narrator of Viv, however, over emoted and took over the character, almost preventing her from taking her natural form in the book. Her voice was often too enticing and breathy, sometimes falling off too low at the end of a sentence. I felt that she inserted herself too strongly into the reading. The author’s apparent liberal views became very apparent as she injected her anti-gun, anti-conservative, and pro-life positions throughout the narrative, but they were not offensive.
    • 4/5
      I love horses and have enjoyed a few of Livesey's other books, so why not? Well, this one was passable but not particularly memorable. Viv is a mom, a successful businesswoman married to a successful optometrist, and is obsessed by personal success in whatever guise it comes. When superhorse Mercury gallops into her best friend's stable, Viv's obsessed in no time, thrusting herself backwards in time to her adolescence, when she actually overtrained and ruined her own horse. Inconveniently, Mercury belongs to an owner whose brother was actually killed while riding him, and there's a teenage girl at the stable who also covets the horse and thinks Viv's too old for competition. So: things go very wrong, and Donald, Viv's husband, dithers around trying to decide what action to take. Mercury is a pale and muted version of the groundbreaking domestic thriller Defending Jacob.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although I found it difficult to concentrate while battling the waves of terror that come over me every time I think about the election. But this novel is a page-turner -- Livesey is very good at seeding the novel with hints about what's to come. It's a book about marriage, and secrets, and the disappointments of adulthood. I recommend it, especially if you're already a fan of Livesey, but maybe wait a few weeks if you're as distracted by real life as I am.
    • 4/5
      When you get married and have kids, sometimes you have to put other things about your life on the back burner, at least in the early years when babies are so overwhelmingly needy. This can be incredibly difficult, especially when the thing you've sidelined is something that once brought you much joy or even defined a major piece of yourself. And if you come to find the time to pursue that passion once again, it can be that much more intense than it was before you knew what life was like without it. The trick is in the balancing of the life you've chosen and the newly rediscovered dream, not allowing one to subsume the other. This struggle and the way it changes the dynamic of the family involved is at the heart of Margot Livesey's newest novel, Mercury.Donald and Viv Stevenson have what looks to be an enviable marriage. They have two children and jobs they enjoy well enough. Their personalities balance each other out and they hold the same liberal beliefs, working from the same moral stance. But in the past year, Donald has been felled by grief after the death of his father and he seems to have insulated himself from further emotion. While Donald is at an emotional remove from Viv and the kids, he is missing a complete sea change in his wife. Having given up a lucrative job in finance to work at her best friend's barn and riding school, Viv is happy working with young riders until a new horse comes to board at Windy Hill. Mercury, a beautiful thoroughbred, is an exceptional horse and he reawakens Viv's long dormant desire to compete. Slowly she is drawn into more and more obsessive and troubling behaviour around this horse that is not hers.Told in three sections, with Donald's narrative framing Viv's, this story of a foundering marriage, obsession, omissions, and shifting perspectives is an interesting one. Donald is by far the more sympathetic character. He is an optometrist whose vision certainly isn't clear but he never betrays his base character. His worst sin is in missing the transformation of his wife. In fact, he has a long history of not confronting unpleasantness and waffling over decisions in his background, which causes him to take on quite a lot of unearned guilt over the terrible result of Viv's unhealthy obsession and possessiveness. In his narration, he struggles to discover where he has been willfully blind and therefore must take responsibility for missing pivotal moments that could have changed their eventual outcome. Inserted into the middle of his hindsight narration is Viv's section, which is written as if she is telling her version of events to Donald, justifying her actions and laying blame on his emotional unreachability. But it is only in the wake of the shocking happening that she reveals her secrets and her trespasses to his view. And even in the wake of this event, neither of them have any clarity on the moral imperative they face. The novel is complex with ambiguities and blame, and the theme of sight and blindness is quite obvious throughout the narrative. The tension rises throughout Donald's first section but once the threatened action comes to fruition, the story becomes less alarming and more focused on internal reactions, the question of what is right and why, and whether a marriage gone so far off track can come together again. There is much that is troubling here, both intentionally written that way and for me as a reader. There is an overt political diatribe that could have been more subtly (and therefore effectively) handled and a couple of tangential plot lines had more weight than they deserved. The ending is unrealistic and rather unsatisfying. But over all, the novel is a quiet look at the secrets, omissions, and incremental changes in character that result in a marriage that is no longer what it once was and will appeal to those who enjoy reading about non-attention grabbing marriages in crisis or about the small, non-sexual infidelities that can, and do, change the tenor of everything.
    • 4/5
      Donald and Vivian are living the American dream. They're married with two adorable children, in a loving and committed relationship, and have a close circle of family and friends nearby. Sadly, their dream relationship begins to take a wrong turn and things go from bad to worse in Margot Livesey's latest, the psychological thriller Mercury.Donald was born in Scotland and came to the United States with his family as a child. He went back to Scotland as an adult and studied medicine before returning to the US to work as an ophthalmologist. He enjoyed his career and serendipitously meets and falls in love with Vivian (Viv). Soon they have two lovely children, a boy and girl, get married, move to the suburbs, and restructure their lives to suit their families needs. Fast forward a few years and Donald is working as an optometrist and Viv is no longer working in high finance but is now a horse trainer working at a local stable with her childhood best friend. Viv seems happy with her life as a trainer, mother, and wife until a new horse is brought to board at the stables. Soon she is spending all of her time at the stables, obsessing over training with this horse, obsessing over possible danger to this horse, and just obsessing. She's no longer the woman Donald married and Donald isn't quite sure when things went wrong, how to fix it, or whether he even wants to fix his marriage.I found Mercury to be an engrossing read that hooked me from the very beginning. Although I read this book in one day, it is quite possible (and highly probable) that I would have finished it in a few hours if I weren't dealing with a migraine that progressed from moderate to severe throughout the day. Even with the multiple breaks I was forced to take, I couldn't wait to return to this story to find out what happens next. Ms. Livesey has crafted an incredible story with amazingly real and realistically flawed characters that made me believe the action was really happening rather than mere words on a page. I was intrigued by this book's synopsis and the cover image and smiled when I got to the point where the image layout made sense (read the book and you'll understand). I also enjoyed reading about a character with my first name, Vivian (even though I didn't really care for the abbreviated Viv). I could tell you more about what happens in the story but I won't (okay, there is a parrot that you'll enjoy reading about). It is sufficient to say that Mercury includes family angst and drama, marital discord (not knock-down drag-em-out fights or anything but discord nonetheless), obsessions, lying to family and friends, cover-ups, and more. If you enjoy reading books about family drama, psychological suspense, or just want a good book to read, then I strongly urge you to grab a copy of Mercury to read. Trust me, this is one must-read book you'll want to read sooner rather than later. I also recommend you make sure you have sufficient time set aside to read this book (like a weekend) because you probably won't want to put it down once you start.I received a free digital review copy from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.