The Sharp Edge of Mercy
Mayo brings readers into the dark side of medicine in 1890 Manhattan, where 18-year-old Lillian Dolan must overcome one obstacle after another as she aspires to become a nurse. For reasons Mayo unveils toward the end of the novel, Lillian and her 14-year-old sister Marie, whose mind was seriously affected by scarlatina, have abandoned their mother and are trying to survive on their own in a tenement. To support herself and her sister, Lillian manages to find a job as an assistant nurse at New York Cancer Hospital, which treats women suffering from the late stages of the disease. After some difficulty, she secures daycare for Marie. At the hospital Lillian encounters unexpected challenges, including scorn from the nursing staff, assignment to the most disagreeable of hospital jobs, questionable attention from a pompous and creepy surgeon, and, finally, an ethical dilemma at the heart of the novel. Mayo interweaves Lillian’s experiences navigating her workday with her changing relationships with people on the margins of society, including gay men, lesbians, and African Americans of varying social classes.
Mayo is an accomplished writer, conveying emotion through gesture and posture, pacing her plot carefully, and adding the right amount of foreshadowing. She excels, too, at recreating a sense of New York in 1890—public transportation, the neighborhoods of Hell’s Kitchen and the Bowery, social class distinctions, and bias against women and groups perceived to be different. Occasionally, readers may sense that Lillian is too good to be true. More often, Mayo effectively shows how Lillian needs help from others to counter her own biases. Highly recommended.
