In Mercy, Lara Santoro supplies visual impressions of acute awareness regarding Africa’s state of fragility. Africa is a beautiful continent with its vast ocher plateaus, frothy mountain tops, tropical foliage, and blooming bright colors. The continent is covered with some of the most spectacular species of animals known to mankind. However, death has cast a shadow over the gloriousness of Africa’s beauty.

Mercy (though she is not a girl) is the African house girl of Anna, a drunken journalist on assignment in Africa. While there, Anna witnesses upfront and personal the slums of Africa. The people are dying in wars, from disease, and scarcity. Tribe fighting against tribe, village against village, nationality against nationality, but everyone loses when HIV/AIDS and poverty are added to the equation. It all ultimately leads to a vortex of death.

Hopelessness fills the pages as Anna walks through the body-covered dirt roads, the putrid smell of suffering seeping into her senses demanding nausea to overtake her. The details are morbid. A character from the book reminisces about finding a dead mother clinging to her child. Upon attempting to remove the small child from his mother’s arms, he wails and reaches for her, pleading for the revival of her lifeless embrace.

Mercy, now loosed from death’s grip, is enraged at the negligence of her people. She starts a movement that quickly gains the attention of world-renowned drug companies. Mercy leads the fight to lower the costs of drugs used to prolong the lives of HIV/AIDS recipients for the people of Africa.

The issue of money, as it is stated in the novel, is directly tied to authority: “To have such power is to lose one’s soul."  This quote poses a question: Does wealth cause one to become a god, an idol? As a soul teeters between life and death, a decision is made to deny or approve some needed benefit based upon monetary status. Unfortunately, this has been a reality since the existence of money. Because of money or lack thereof, millions of people are suffering and graved too soon.

Santoro puts the reader on the slums of Africa through her vivid descriptions. In a few passages I was forced to turn away from the images created by her words. I am inspired to seek out ways I can help lessen the blow of Africa’s epidemic. This book is enlightening for those who are unaware (intentionally or not) of the death that runs rampant over the beautiful lands of Africa.