The Mercy of Thin Air: A Novel [BARGAIN PRICE] (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Madame Boliva, New Orleans, Aunt Twolly (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A gothically tinged historical take on The Lovely Bones, this debut novel manages to carve out some of its own territory. In late 1920s New Orleans, Raziela "Razi" Nolan carries on a passionate college love affair with Andrew O'Connell (while planning to be a gynecologist). She desires immortality ("One lifetime isn't enough to make all the trouble of which I'm capable") and gets her wish when she slips poolside, dies and finds herself in a state "between life and whatever comes next" in which she may observe the world she's left behind and even meddle mildly. As she learns the rules of "the between" Razi finds it too painful to keep track of Andrew. But 70 years after her death in 1929, she is curious to know what happened to her beloved and is drawn to a young couple, Amy Richmond and Scott Duncan. Domingue captures the equally repressive and uninhibited culture of 1920s America, creates a convincing world of "the between," and gives nice shape to the loving but troubled relationship of Amy and Scott as Razi uncovers her connection to them. The novel lacks a fully distinctive voice, but is certainly several cuts above the genre mysteries and historicals it most resembles.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Echoing Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (2002), debut novelist Domingue places her protagonist, Razi Nolan, "between," that is, in the place where souls go after death, perhaps for decades, before proceeding to whatever comes next. Razi dies in a drowning accident in July 1929, just after graduating from Tulane. Headed to medical school, she was involved with the dissemination of, at the time, illegal birth control information to unmarried women. Now, 70 years later, Razi attempts to find out what happened to Andrew, the love of her life. A parallel plot involves a young couple, Amy and Scott, who are drifting apart because Amy is unable to forget her first fiance, who died tragically 6 years earlier. In each plot, so different in time and place, Domingue takes a probing look at what produces strong and independent women, be it environment, education, or genes. Though Domingue gets a little bogged down in the intricate details of hidden family ties, the well-drawn characters of Razi and Amy ensure that this is an engaging tale. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press (June 1, 2006)
• ISBN-10: 0743278828
• ASIN: B001O9CFGI
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (83 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #866,188 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A catch in my throat, a slip in time and dimension.., February 10, 2006

By	Pamela Patterson "blkwid" (Plano, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mercy of Thin Air: A Novel (Hardcover)

Occasionally there is a book that I can't put down, yet don't want to end. THE MERCY OF THIN AIR was one such book. I sacrificed a night's sleep to keep turning the pages, unable to stop reading, not wanting to lose the magic of this haunting tale of love, loss, regret and release. A part of me lingered within the pages for days. An indefinable ache, a momentary welling of tears kept me hovering within the vapor of Ronlyn Domingue's moving first novel. As has been said by others, her voice is original, her images tangible, breathtaking, and the reader is left hungry for more.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lovely Book, October 17, 2005

By	Bonnie Jo Davis "Reader, review and internet ... (Southern CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mercy of Thin Air: A Novel (Hardcover)

The Mercy of Thin Air is a lovely book. It is the first book I've read cover to cover in a long time. The basis of the book is a ghost story but the real story is how people come to terms with a lost love. In most cases a love story ends with some sort of resolution or understanding but when one of the parties is dead there is no resolution... only a hole in the heart that can never be filled.

A great deal of the story is set in New Orleans in the 20's and it features a gorgeous blond feminist Raziela Nolan. She dies accidentally after graduating from college and while in the throes of an unexpected love affair. Her boyfriend and her family and friends are devasted and the book talks about how the living and the dead cope with loss.

I highly recommend this novel. The story resonated with me and I could not put it down.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You have books that friends recommend...., January 2, 2006

By	L. Quido "quidrock" (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Mercy of Thin Air: A Novel (Hardcover)

and then every once in awhile, someone important in your life, who really focuses upon what you would like, tells you about a book they've loved. Such is "The Mercy of Thin Air".

And though detractors might say that first time novelist Ronlyn Domingue (who has published short stories) is simply building upon the idea first thought of by Alice Sebold in "The Lovely Bones". Perhaps she is, but Domingue adds a joyousness and rationale for the life thereafter, and those souls caught between heaven and earth as a choice they've made. Her protagonist is Raziela, a '20's flapper who is written to convey someone caught up in "women's issues" of the era. Issues we don't stop to think are issues. The suffragettes have won the vote...so what more is there? Well, consider the issue of a woman being allowed to seek out birth control. In her novel, Domingue sets these types of issues to the music and words of Raziela's love story. And in her descriptions of New Orleans, the Cresent City of the 20's, you'll fall in love with her.

Without revealing how she dies, Domingue catches us up on Raziela's after life, and her interesting cohabitation with young marrieds Scott and Amy, while she ponders what may have happened to Razi's paramour, Andrew, in the days, weeks and years subsequent to her death. The story cuts from past to present, now at Raziela's coming of age, now at the tableau she watches as the marriage of Scott and Amy undergoes a transformation -- part of which Razi causes, part of which she seeks to cure.

Interesting plot and character evolution notwithstanding, it is not the central force of Domingue's writing. I reserve that for her command and flow of words, and how her words convey the senses. In her quest for phrasing, she sometimes gets carried away ..."her eyelids slipped closed with the grace of butterfly wings".... but more often than not, she writes with the breathtaking heart of one who has not been stymied by words...

"Like those of us between, like memory, words are images without substance - fluid, malleable, fundamental.....I am a constellation... a configuration reduced to its essentials, spread far and wide like the atoms that once gave my body the illusion of density."

Domingue is not a one-hit wonder, she is a woman whose love for the language should stand the test of time. And you'll finish "The Mercy of Thin Air" in awe, as I was, by her skill at leaving you breathless.