Robin Romm: Acts of Mercy: Aversion in Fiction (July 2018)

Sometimes, what is most intriguing or elegant about a story is the way it avoids and sidesteps our expectations. What happens when writers avoid what, in less imaginative books or scripts, would be considered the “main crisis”—a death, abuse, a crime, choosing instead to focus on a tangent, a vector that connects to this central crisis, but goes in its own direction? Texts discussed include Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin and My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout, among others.