In the Name of Mercy - Softcover

Nicholas Delbanco has directed the MFA Writing Program at the University of Michigan since 1985.

There's an old cliche that warns: Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. In Delbanco's new novel, just about everyone gets what he or she wants, with predictably disastrous results. After helping his wife end a terrible and doomed battle with cancer, Dr. Peter Julius wants to set up a hospice where terminally ill people can slide peacefully into death. His millionaire patron enthusiastically supports Julius in this quest, but soon the death toll in the hospice and the hospital with which it is affiliated climbs precipitously, and the media and police want answers. Julius single-mindedly goes about his work, ignoring the body count, his mourning eased by his growing affection for thanatologist Rebecca Forsythe. Delbanco has crafted a chilling story of desire simultaneously fulfilled and thwarted. He constantly shifts his perspective, telling the tale from several characters' points of view. While sometimes disconcerting, this technique helps the reader understand, and even begin to accept, the motivations that drive the well-drawn and fascinating cast. George Needham