Bill Littlefield presents "Mercy"

82 Central Street,Wellesley MA 02482

06 April, 2023

Description

If you would prefer to order your ticket by phone, you may call Wellesley Books at 781-431-1160. Your $5 ticket can be put towards a copy of Mercy bought at the event. Alternatively, you can buy the book now and your entry ticket will be free. Books will be available for pickup at the event. Please note that you must have bought your copy from Wellesley Books in order to have the author sign it at the event. Please note that we cannot issue refunds within 48 hours of the event. COVID Protocols • Masks are NOT required, but they are highly encouraged. ABOUT THE BOOK Mercy is a novel made up of interrelated stories in which various characters are seeking mercy, whether or not they know it. Looming over the action of the novel is the life and legend of Arthur Baladino, a career criminal who has spent much of his life in prison. Early on, he’s released from prison so he can die at home. He takes his time doing it, which irritates his probation officer no little and quite some. Baladino’s wife finds mercy and companionship with a neighbor whose husband has lost her money and his own by day-trading in the basement of the home the bank is about to seize. Katherine Baladino has picked up some of her husband’s cunning over the years, and she’s acquainted with two of his former associates, a couple of arsonists named Gibby and Francis. Gibby’s best shot at mercy is the memory of a sweltering day on the Jersey shore many years earlier, when a woman he’d never seen before pulled him off the sand and dragged him into the surf, thereby instantly curing the world’s worst hangover. He doubts that anyone has been as kind to him since, but the memory’s there. The woman, now comfortable in a suburb where small houses are being replaced by big houses, remembers the incident, too, and doubts she’d be capable as an adult of such spontaneous giving. There’s more, but the idea is that mercy comes at unexpected times, in unexpected places, from unexpected sources.. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bill Littlefield’s most recent novel, Mercy, was published in July, 2022, by Black Rose Writing. Award-winning local author Gish Jen described Mercy as “quick with life” and commented that “its real surprise lies in its wisdom.” Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball and The Big Short, has said “Littlefield’s literary intelligence and passion shine through all he writes.” Littlefield was the host of NPR’s weekly sports program, “Only A Game,” from the inception of the program in 1993 until August, 2018. Since 2018 he has been working with the Emerson Prison Initiative, teaching incarcerated men at MCI-Concord. He wrote and voiced commentaries for WBUR in Boston and for NPR beginning in 1984. During one stretch, the regular lineup of sports commentators on NPR’s “Morning Edition” featured Frank Deford (Monday), Bill (Tuesday), and Red Barber (Friday). Bill grew up in New Jersey when Willie Mays was playing for the Giants in New York…a circumstance that had an impact on Bill that’s evident to this day. Each year, on Mays’s birthday, Littlefield sends Mr. Mays a poem celebrating his career. His favorite response from Mr. Mays – reported by Mays’s closest associate – was: “He writes pretty good.” Bill is the author or editor of the eleven works listed below. Prospect (Houghton-Mifflin) and The Circus in the Wood (Houghton-Mifflin) are his previous novels. Keepers (Peninsula Press) and Only A Game (University of Nebraska Press) are collections of radio commentaries and magazine pieces. Baseball Days (Little Brown) is a collaboration with photographer Henry Horenstein. Champions (Little, Brown) and Take Me Out (Zephyr) are for young readers.