Literary Fiction, Novel in Verse
Date Published: June 7th, 2023
Publisher: Jackson Heights Press
A lethal plague sweeps the globe. Millions have died. Survivors are confined to their homes.
Gabriel passes his time in a small New York apartment on the city's Upper West Side. During the plodding solitude of the lockdown, he observes several strangers in their nearby apartments. As he watches them struggle to survive a world at risk of extinction, he wonders about their lives—where they're from, what they value, how they're coping with a deadly contagion. All alone, he develops a vague yet important connection to these people, an affection for those who are struggling to survive isolation, fear and looming death.
Told in powerful, spellbinding free verse, Gabriel's observations grow deeper and more elaborate as the endless days pass. But when he and a woman from across the street begin to watch each other from afar, his imagination begins to collide with the bleak reality of the times.
Praise for A Plague of Mercies
"... a captivatingly unconventional love story ... brilliantly observant poetry that captures a dark moment in our recent history." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
Praise for Adam Pelzman's The Boy and the Lake
"Pelzman excels at creating an intensely atmospheric setting and revealing how it shapes his characters' identities and worldviews … The narrative is full of rich, descriptive language … a well-developed vintage setting and classic but thought-provoking coming-of-age theme." —Kirkus Reviews
Runner up for 2021 Selfies Book Awards U.S.
Praise for Adam Pelzman's Troika (A Cuban Russian American Love Story)
"Riveting drama and sensuous prose make for an unforgettable love story … [a] beautifully rendered debut." —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
"Pelzman's talent and vision are formidable …" —Publishers Weekly
"… transcendent, magnetic, intoxicating …" —Bookreporter
Interview with Adam Pelzman
How many books have you written? Do you want each book to stand on its own, or are you trying to build a body of work with connections between each book?
I’ve published four books so far, and each one stands on its own. In fact, as I think about them now, each one is written in a very different style, and I can imagine that if someone were to read all four books, they might think that they were written by four different authors. My first novel, TROIKA, tells the story of an unconventional romantic relationship: it has three main characters and employs both first person and third person points of view. My second novel, THE PAPAYA KING, uses highly formal, florid language that matches the protagonist’s aristocratic delusions. THE BOY AND THE LAKE is a work of historical fiction, with more traditional prose. And my latest novel, A PLAGUE OF MERCIES, is written in non-rhyming free verse—poetry in which the sentences are short, sometimes fragmented, and there’s a lot of open space on the page. Although the subject matter and the writing styles vary from book to book, there are some common themes that run through all of them, including perseverance in the face of adversity, grappling with trauma, and the outsider’s struggle to connect.
How did you come up with the title for your book? What does the title mean?
Typically, when choosing a title, I work through many ideas—often dozens—going back and forth until I settle on the one that I think best captures the essence and style of the book. That wasn’t the case with A PLAGUE OF MERCIES. This was the very first title I came up with, and I took to it immediately. What I was trying to capture was the underlying duality of the most terrible events—how even in a pandemic, amidst fear and death, we can find beauty and meaning.
What did you learn when writing the book?
In A PLAGUE OF MERCIES, I decided to employ a different writing style: instead of prose, I wrote in free verse. I chose this style because I wanted to capture the adverse impact that the pandemic had, for many of us, on our attention spans. We often struggled with anything that required sustained mental focus, and this writing style—with short sentences and space on the page—alludes to that decline in mental stamina. I was hoping to create a novel with substance and meaning, but I also wanted readers to have a smooth, flowing experience with the book. At first, I didn’t have confidence writing in free verse: it was foreign to me, uncomfortable. But as I kept writing, I began to enjoy a newfound sense of freedom and boldness. I noticed that there was greater fluidity to my writing, and with that came an openness to risk-taking, to making mistakes, to experimenting with language, punctuation and structure. By writing in a style that was entirely new to me, I learned that I could grow as a writer. I learned that not all stories are best told in prose, that a “novel in verse” has the potential to elevate a story in unexpected ways.
About the Author
Adam Pelzman was born in Seattle, raised in northern New Jersey, and has spent most of his life in New York City. He studied Russian literature at the University of Pennsylvania and went to law school at UCLA. His first novel, Troika, was published by Penguin (Amy Einhorn Books) and later republished by Jackson Heights Press as A Cuban Russian American Love Story. He is also the author of The Papaya King (which Kirkus Reviews described as "entrancing" and "deeply memorable") and The Boy and the Lake (which is set in New Jersey during the late 1960s). His newest novel, A Plague of Mercies, is available for pre-order now.
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