Tender Mercies by Rosellen Brown

First published: 1978

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Domestic realism

Time of work: The present

Locale: A small town in New Hampshire, with flashbacks to New York City and Boston

Principal Characters:

• Dan Courser, a high-school shop teacher whose carelessness has caused an accident that has left his wife a quadriplegic
• Laura Shurrock Courser, Dan’s quadriplegic wife
• Jonathan Courser, the son of Dan and Laura
• Hallie Courser, the daughter of Dan and Laura
• Mr.Shurrock, and
• Mrs. Shurrock, Laura’s parents
• Carol Shurrock, Laura’s sister
• John Courser, Dan’s older brother

Form and Content

Tender Mercies focuses on the aftermath of a terrible accident and its effects on the family involved. The quotations from Virginia Woolf and May Swenson cited at the novel’s beginning pose a question: What happens when, freed of her body, a woman is reduced to the core of herself? The novel explores this question, primarily through the poetic monologues of the victim, Laura, whose body has been reduced to an unfeeling object by the carelessness of her husband of twelve years. Yet Tender Mercies turns an intense and unsentimental light on social relationships beyond the internal one between victim and self. It examines the relationships between husband and wife, among family members, and between a family and the community in which it lives. Stripped of tradition by the accident, these relationships require redefining, and regarding this redefinition the novel poses basic questions related to gender issues. What motivates men and women to marry the people they marry? What is expected from the relationship? What function does a wife or husband serve? In narrative flashbacks throughout the novel, Dan describes his family background, his meeting and courtship of Laura, the accident, and the period of recuperation in New York City. As narrator, he continues to describe the painful struggle to adjust, with Laura’s internal monologues providing the inner landscape from which she faces her dilemma.

The novel begins a year after the accident in which Dan turned the moving propeller of a boat into the body of his wife, paralyzing her from the neck down. The family has spent that year in New York City where Dan drove a taxi while his wife recuperated in a hospital. After their daughter Hallie disappears for a night, Dan literally kidnaps Laura from the rehabilitation facility against the doctors’ advice and brings his family home.

During the weeks that follow, Dan assumes total care of Laura and the family. Tensions build as Dan and Laura attempt to communicate and as the children try to adjust to a disabled mother. The community members come to pay their respects, which is not a painless experience, since they, too, need to adjust to Laura’s situation. Dan decides to throw an impromptu party and seems somewhat encouraged by Laura’s reaction, believing that their relationship is beginning to move, although he is not sure in what direction.

Shortly after the party, Laura’s family arrives with aid and accusations. Dan is forced to face the fact that they must move from the house he loves because it is not wheelchair accessible. Unable to cope, Dan leaves Laura and the children to the Shurrocks’ care.

One month later, he returns to find only his sister-in-law Carol remaining to care for Laura. When he learns that Laura had been hospitalized for a time, he goes to his brother John for details. After a fight in which he allows himself to be beaten by John, Dan returns to Laura and makes love to her. After weeks of painful silences, cruel ironies, and hopeless guilt, for the moment at least, this family remains intact.

Context

Rosellen Brown specializes in the portrayal of families in the midst of traumatic and often tragic events. In these circumstances, the ordinary, the stereotype, the ritual fall away and the characters must confront the roots of their existence and their relationships. Brown believes that being a mother has shaped her fiction. She writes about all the terrible possibilities about which mothers dream. In her first novel, The Autobiography of My Mother (1976), a daughter returns home to her mother with a small baby; the mother and daughter are basically incompatible and must learn to live together. In Civil Wars (1984), a couple who are active in the civil rights movement are awarded custody of two children orphaned by an accident. The children are adamant racists. In Before and After (1992), an adolescent son murders his girlfriend, and the parents must define their roles in the light of the crime. In Tender Mercies, Brown portrays a couple who are forced by a terrible accident to redefine their relationship; she does so with all the tender and brutal honesty of Tillie Olsen’s “Tell Me a Riddle.”

With a profound understanding of the traditional male attitude toward women, Brown creates a character who is forced to move beyond this traditional philosophy. Dan Courser views women as they have been portrayed in literature for centuries. On the one hand, woman is the temptress to be conquered, even broken, which makes the man strong and just a little bad. Laura, however, is the other extreme: the woman on the pedestal, Snow White, the mermaid. She is the goddess to be worshipped, to aspire toward; she is the perfect proportion of strength and weakness. Even in her post-accident state, Laura is his monument to idolize. Ironically, in her paralyzed state, she literally becomes the statue on a pedestal. Now, however, he wants her to melt. Making love with her again would be his salvation, would absolve him of his guilt.

Fortunately, Laura brings Dan into the era of feminist enlightenment with her patience, her strength, and her desire to rise above the conformity of her past. Ironically, she minimizes his “badness” and sees herself as bad. She defines marriage as a “concentration” rather than a series of promises, an unbroken thing unseen, but understood, between two people. Dan believes that he can accept that definition because it puts Laura in the middle yet gives him room to negotiate. Brown’s characters are noble in their struggle, and hope prevails because they are willing to change.

Bibliography

Craig, Patricia. “Cripples.” New Statesman 98 (July 13, 1979): 62-63. This article presents a not entirely complimentary review of Tender Mercies. Craig believes that the author has gone a little too far and that the novel contains errors in form and taste. She sees the novel as contributing style, however, and she identifies rehabilitation as the major theme.

Epstein, Joseph. “Is Fiction Necessary?” The Hudson Review 29 (1976-1977): 593-594. This article contains a review of Brown’s The Autobiography of My Mother. Although Epstein thinks that the novel lacks the direction of a real story, he admits that the characters are remarkable, that the book is intelligent, and that Brown is a novelist worth reading.

Hulbert, Ann. “In Struggle.” The New Republic 190 (May 7, 1984): 37-40. Hulbert’s article contains an insightful and extensive review of Civil Wars and several cursory remarks about the first three Brown novels. Hulbert speaks of Brown’s “Keatsian” inclination and, interesting in relationship to Tender Mercies, defines the word “concentration,” a word that Brown uses often.

Rosenbert, Judith. “Rosellen Brown.” Publishers Weekly 239 (August 31, 1992): 54-55. This article contains a review of Brown’s fourth novel, Before and After, brief mention of all of her publications, and a brief biographical sketch. It also focuses on the relationship between Brown as a parent and her fiction. In the article, Brown discusses the economic relationship between female writers and their spouses.

Thurman, Judith. “Rosellen Brown.” Ms. 13 (January, 1985): 82. In 1985, Ms. honored Brown for her willingness to confront major issues in her fiction. This article contains Brown’s comments about her fiction, about reader expectations, and about her home life, as well as a review of Civil Wars.