Andrea Dworkin - Mercy

FOUR WALLS EIGHT WINDOWS

NEW YORK

Copyright © 1990, 1991 by Andrea Dworkin.

A F o u r Wa l l s E ig h t W in d o w s F i r s t E d it io n .

First Printing August, 1991.

First paperback printing September, 1992.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmit ed in any form, by any means, including

mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording or otherwise,

without the prior writ en permission of the publisher.

Excerpts from this novel have appeared in The Michigan Quarterly

Review, Vol. XXIX, No. 4, Fall 1990 and The American Voice ,

No. 21, Winter 1990.

Mercy was first published

in Great Britain by Seeker & Warburg in 1990.

The author and publisher are grateful to the fol owing for

permission to quote from copyright material: Olwyn Hughes for

“Daddy, ” in Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, published by Harper

& Row, Publishers, © 1965 1981; Pantheon for Anna Cancogni’s

translation of Sartre: A Life by Annie Cohen-Solal, © 1987

Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dworkin, Andrea.

Mercy: a novel / Andrea Dworkin.

p.

cm.

I. Title.

PS3554. W85M4 1991

813'. 54—dc20

91-18157

(Cloth) ISBN: 0-941423-69-7

CIP

(Paper) ISBN: 0-941423-88-3

Four Wal s Eight Windows

P. O. Box 548, Village Station

New York, N. Y 10014

Printed in the U. S. A.

F o r Judith Malina

For Michael M oorcock

In M em ory o f Ellen Frankfort

D addy, daddy, you bastard, I’ m through.

“ D ad d y, ” Sylvia Plath

For a small moment have I forsaken

thee; but with great mercies will I gather

thee.

In a little wrath I hid my face from

thee for a moment; but with everlasting

kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith

the Lord thy Redeemer.

Isaiah 54: 7-8

Contents

Not Andrea: Prologue

i

o n e In August 1956 (Age 9)

5

t w o In 1961 and 1962 (Age 14, 15, 16)

29

t h r e e In January 1965 (Age 18)

35

f o u r In February 1965 (Age 18)

56

f iv e In June 1966 (Age 19)

74

s ix In June 1967 (Age 20)

100

s e v e n In 1969, 1970, 1971 (Age 22, 23, 24, 25)

134

e i g h t In March 1973 (Age 26)

164

n in e In October 1973 (Age 27)

214

TEN April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

273

e le v e n April 30, 1974 (Age 27)

308

Not Andrea: Epilogue

334

Author’s N ote

343

Not Andrea: Prologue

N o w I’ve come into m y ow n as a wom an o f letters. I am a

committed feminist, o f course. I admit to a cool, elegant

intellect with a clear superiority over the ape-like men who

write. I don’t wear silk, o f course. I am icy and formal even

alone by myself, a discipline o f identity and identification. I do

not wear m yself out with mistaken resistance, denunciation,

foolhardy anguish. I feel, o f course. I feel the pain, the sorrow ,

the lack o f freedom. I feel with a certain hard elegance. I am

admired for it— the control, the reserve, the ability to make

the fine point, the subtle point. I avoid the obvious. I have a

certain intellectual elegance, a certain refinement o f the mind.

There is nothing w rong with civilized thought. It is necessary.

I believe in it and I do have the courage o f m y convictions. One

need not raise one’s voice. I am formal and careful, yes, but

with a real power in m y style i f I do say so myself. I am not, as

a writer or a human being, insipid or bland, and I have not sold

out, even though I have manners and limits, and I am not

poor, o f course, w h y should I be? I don’t have the stink on me

that some o f the others have, I am able to say it, I am not effete.

I am their sister and their friend. I do not disavow them. I am

committed. I write checks and sign petitions. I lend m y name.

I write books with a strong narrative line in clear, detailed,

descriptive prose, in the nineteenth-century tradition o f

storytelling, intellectually coherent, nearly realistic, not

sentimental but yes with sex and romance and wom en w ho do

something, achieve something, strong women. I am

committed, I do care, and I am the one to contend with, if the

truth be told, because m y mind is clear and cool and m y prose

is exceedingly skillful if sometimes a trifle too baroque. Every

style has its dangers. I am not reckless or accusatory. I consider

freedom. I look at it from many angles. I value it. I think about

it. I’ve found this absolutely stunning passage from Sartre that

I want to use and I copy it out slow ly to savor it, because it is