Assessment:
Plot/Idea: In this riveting prequel, Dr. Phineas Mann deals with the AIDS epidemic in a New Orleans hospital and then the aftermath of a hurricane. Powers successfully captures the urgency and agony of grappling with a devastating disease.
Prose: The prose is clean and brisk, delivering clear and organic insight into the characters' motivations and intentions.
Originality: The author's familiarity with the early 1980s era is apparent, as is his understanding of hospital and end-of-life care.
Character Development/Execution: Most characters are well crafted, especially Phineas the protagonist. Dialogue is lively throughout while the sly humor is surprising and lends itself well to making the painful subject matter more readable.
Date Submitted: May 03, 2022
Breath and Mercy
Mark Anthony Powers
Hawksbill Press
978-1-7370329-2-2 $16.99 Paper/$6.99 Kindle
www.hawksbillpress.com
In 1983 in the novel Breath and Mercy, Phineas Mann is on course to become a successful physician in New Orleans after years of medical school training.
His momentum is stymied by two life-altering events: the rise of AIDS and Hurricane Jezebel, both of which introduce challenges to his career on different levels. Either of these events could sink him.
Mark Anthony Powers first told Mann's story in A Swarm in May, which covered some of his dilemmas in choosing patient treatments; but this prequel sets the stage for that book by returning to the past to cover his influences and the evolution of his dedication to healthcare.
The story traces his move from Boston, contrasting cultural milieus and Dr. Mann's personal life with the professional challenges he faces on a daily basis as he grapples with cases needing miracles and those which hold little hope for successful treatment.
As an ethical challenge emerges to test Dr. Mann's training and convictions, Powers creates a compelling story.
Breath and Mercy is about rescue and redemption processes that challenge this good doctor and his readers alike with thought-provoking passages following medical processes and accompanying ethical dilemmas.
The medical community's activities and sketches of life-saving and life-altering experiences permeate a story that is both captivating and educational.
What kind of supportive care should be given to those who are dying?
As legal processes blend into personal predicaments, Powers crafts a tale that ventures into questions of murder and survival tactics as Dr. Mann faces many career-changing moments and epiphanies.
Readers seeking a compelling story solidly rooted in both medical procedures and accompanying moral and ethical concerns will find Breath and Mercy a vivid tale.
