Marcia Hutchinson’s audiobook traces a Caribbean girl’s Bradford childhood in the 1960s
Marcia Hutchinson’s *The Mercy Step* is a coming-of-age story told through the eyes of Mercy Hanson, born in Bradford in 1962. The audiobook follows her early childhood and discovery of books, while showing how family tenderness and humour coexist with the harm caused by her violent father.
Mercy’s mother confronts a teacher after Mercy says she was kicked, but cannot protect her children from her husband, who beats her and slaps Mercy as a baby. Hutchinson narrates the audiobook, shifting between Mercy’s Yorkshire speech and her mother’s Jamaican Patois. Named for the stair where Mercy sits with her toy Dolly, the novel uses a child’s perspective to reveal the effects of adult cruelty.
- Mercy grows up amid warmth, books and domestic cruelty in 1960s Bradford.
- Hutchinson narrates her Women’s Prize-nominated novel.
- The child’s perspective reveals the cost of adults’ violence.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson audiobook review – a Caribbean child’s-eye view of 60s Bradford”.