The Mercy of Thin Air: A Novel

In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan's magnificent love affair is interrupted by her untimely and tragic death. Immediately after, she chooses to stay between -- a realm that exists after life and before whatever lies beyond it. From this remarkable vantage point, Razi narrates the story of her lost love as well as of the relationship of Amy and Scott, a young couple whose house she haunts seventy years later. It is their own troubled story that finally compels Razi to slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to her first and only passion, Andrew, and to confront a long-hidden secret. The Mercy of Thin Air entwines two heartbreaking and redemptive love stories that echo across three generations and culminates in a finish that will leave readers breathless. It is a poignant and brilliant first novel that beautifully captures the nature of love and shows how it transcends all barriers -- even death.

From Publishers Weekly

A gothically tinged historical take on The Lovely Bones, this debut novel manages to carve out some of its own territory. In late 1920s New Orleans, Raziela "Razi" Nolan carries on a passionate college love affair with Andrew O'Connell (while planning to be a gynecologist). She desires immortality ("One lifetime isn't enough to make all the trouble of which I'm capable") and gets her wish when she slips poolside, dies and finds herself in a state "between life and whatever comes next" in which she may observe the world she's left behind and even meddle mildly. As she learns the rules of "the between" Razi finds it too painful to keep track of Andrew. But 70 years after her death in 1929, she is curious to know what happened to her beloved and is drawn to a young couple, Amy Richmond and Scott Duncan. Domingue captures the equally repressive and uninhibited culture of 1920s America, creates a convincing world of "the between," and gives nice shape to the loving but troubled relationship of Amy and Scott as Razi uncovers her connection to them. The novel lacks a fully distinctive voice, but is certainly several cuts above the genre mysteries and historicals it most resembles. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Echoing Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (2002), debut novelist Domingue places her protagonist, Razi Nolan, "between," that is, in the place where souls go after death, perhaps for decades, before proceeding to whatever comes next. Razi dies in a drowning accident in July 1929, just after graduating from Tulane. Headed to medical school, she was involved with the dissemination of, at the time, illegal birth control information to unmarried women. Now, 70 years later, Razi attempts to find out what happened to Andrew, the love of her life. A parallel plot involves a young couple, Amy and Scott, who are drifting apart because Amy is unable to forget her first fiance, who died tragically 6 years earlier. In each plot, so different in time and place, Domingue takes a probing look at what produces strong and independent women, be it environment, education, or genes. Though Domingue gets a little bogged down in the intricate details of hidden family ties, the well-drawn characters of Razi and Amy ensure that this is an engaging tale. Deborah DonovanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Inside Flap

"Ronlyn Domingue's debut novel is an ethereal and eternal love story with images so luminous they lift off the paper. The Mercy of Thin Air will haunt you long after the last page is turned." -- Paula Wall, national bestselling author of The Rock Orchard "With lucid supple prose, Ronlyn Domingue weaves a gossamer tale suspended between two worlds. Readers will find it difficult to let go of this moving debut by a remarkable talent well on her way to a distinguished career." -- James Wilcox, author of Heavenly Days "In The Mercy of Thin Air, Raziela Nolan - a ghost - spins vivid portraits of the world she left, and the world she isn't allowed to join, reminding us that there is the finest of lines between present and past, between life and death, between love and regret. This is that rarest of first novels - a truly original voice, and a truly original story." --Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Vanishing Acts and My Sister's Keeper "Like The Lovely Bones, Ronlyn Domingue's own first novel makes the reader feel as if he's died and gone to heaven. The Mercy of Thin Air should enjoy a similarly long and happy life." --James Gordon Bennett, author of The Moon Stops Here "Debut novelist Domingue weaves a tapestry of lost spirits and misplaced loves." --Kirkus Reviews "[An] amazing first novel.... Razi is so enchanting that readers will gladly follow her anywhere. Filled with vivid descriptions of scents, sounds, and marvelous human sensations that people take for granted and that spirits can only wistfully recall, this is a novel that gets under one's skin. Mere mortals can only hope that Domingue has more stories to tell." --Library Journal (starred review)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Part OneThe day I die, I glance at Daddy's newspaper before I leave the house. I notice the date, July 10, 1929, and realize it's been almost a month since my graduation from Tulane. No matter what I've done to make these weeks drag wide and full as clouds, they've disappeared in a gust.I walk the tree-shaded blocks in my favorite green sleeveless dress. The heat makes me dewy. I hope my extra swimsuit is at his house because I terribly want a dip. If not, perhaps I should go bare. Andrew's parents are in the Swiss Alps, avoiding mosquitoes and tropical heat, and Emmaline will be away shopping until it's time to cook lunch.My pace quickens. Along St. Charles Avenue, I grin at a college boy who offers a ride in his coupe. His F. Scott hair weeps into his neck from the humidity. He looks familiar, someone who's cut in on me at a dance or two."Thanks," I reply, "but I'm limbering up for a swim.""Mind if I join you?" he asks."Not today, sport."As he drives away, I stop in my tracks. Andrew's surprise. The items are still on my dressing table. A sliver of grapefruit curls at the tip of my tongue. Go back home, brush my teeth -- forgot to do that, too -- sneak it out in a little bag. No one will notice, no one will know. No. Maybe.It can wait.I unlock the back gate with a key hidden behind the purple bougainvillea. The back door near the pool is unlocked. I find my swimsuit in one of the bottom drawers of Andrew's bookcase, where he keeps the things I've left behind.The water sips me into the deep where I twirl against its pull. Inside the house, the grandfather clock chimes ten times; then, after several languid laps, once more. It is ten thirty. He is late returning from his tennis match with Warren. I scissor myself to the pool's bottom and watch the ribbons of light knit me among them. When I surface, I crawl out to take a dive. With a shimmy, I wriggle the leg openings and bodice of my suit into place. I am tempted to shed the wool -- Imagine his face if he found me with more than my naked toes pointed at the sky. Wouldn't he -- The words fall with my body. A second, then two, of darkness. The light around me becomes gauzy and bright. Did I dive through my thoughts and into the water? What peace, these first moments under the surface when my swimmer lungs haven't started to burn and I have forgotten that time is moving above.An airy-fairy rush fills my limbs and lifts me like incense. I am dissipating, consumed by the weightlessness of a dream -- no, I am being pulled up, out, away -- Stop.My eyesight blurs through a veil of faint sparks. I am above the water.Andrew approaches the pool, stifling a quiet laugh. He's not going to let me scare him this time. He's seen this before. With each slow step, he removes the layers -- shoes, socks, tennis shirt, belt. Andrew unbuttons his white pants but keeps them on. He kneels on the pool's edge, pulls me up, and stretches me at his side. His smooth face goes straight to my neck, but this time I don't respond. He shakes me.He puts his ear to my mouth. He forces his right hand into my suit, under my left breast. He withdraws, holds his palm against my diaphragm. My head bobs as his fingers, frantic in a way they've never been, search the back of my head. He feels the lump that swelled after I clumsily slipped at the edge of the pool, slammed backward on the concrete, and fell into the water. My flesh is still warm. He draws me onto his lap. He wraps around my body as if he'll never let me go.I have never heard a man's heart break.Emmaline, smiling, walks through the back door, a grocery bag on her hip. She hears his keen -- suffocated, delirious. Her eyes shine with panic. She drops everything, rushes to us. Her shadow covers our heads. When Emmaline touches the thick black waves on his crown, Andrew lifts his face from my neck and looks up. Her hand moves to his cheek. Her palm fills with his tears. Pewter lines streak down her dark face.Over and over, he rocks me, the lullaby, sotto voce, no no no no no. He will not release me. Emmaline kneels in front of him and strokes my damp tendrils. Finally, when she touches his head again, he lays me flat, kisses my lips, and takes the silver locket from my neck. He walks into the house without looking back. She traces a cross on my forehead.I linger for a week of dawns and dusks near the pool. Each day, the haze and disorientation weakens. My body is gone, but whatever I am -- the sum of my final thoughts, my last breath -- has begun to take shape, vague as it is.I slip through the back door behind Simon, who has watered the plants his grandmother, Emmaline, has neglected for days. I wander into Andrew's room. He isn't there. In the reflection of the bookcase doors, I see a short man move into view. He has the grainy look of a silent film, and he wears a baggy shirt draped over tight pants. Around his neck is a faded scapular."I am Noble. I have come to welcome you," he says to me. His English undulates with the rhythm of French. His giant, heavy-lidded eyes overwhelm his otherwise large nose and long, thin mouth. I know that his hair should be blond -- I can sense that -- but it has an inexplicable lack of color. "What is your name?""Raziela Nolan. Call me Razi." I watch him glance at me, tip to toe, and I look down. I am nothing but a blur. "I'm missing. Where am I?""You're new. It will come soon." Noble peers around Andrew's room. This man, I think, has seen castles."Do you know what has happened?" Noble asks."I drowned.""Do you have questions?""Where are we?""Between.""Between what?""I do not know.""What are we?""That, too, I do not know.""So we go about our business as if we weren't -- aren't -- dead?""That will not be possible. You will soon come into hearing, sight, and smell beyond any experience you can imagine. Your form will change, and you will be able to move fluidly through this world. There will be tricks you can do, tricks that ones who are between can observe, some that the breathing can see. Be careful of your audience."I remain silent. I am within the sound of his voice, not near it."There are rules, about which we all have an understanding," Noble says. "First, do not remain with your loved ones. You can go anywhere you please, anywhere at all, but leave them alone. Second, do not linger at your grave. One brief visit will suffice. Do that when you are able, perhaps in another seven days. And finally, do not touch. You have no need for it any longer.""Why not?"His small hand brushes the place where my cheek should have been. I know that he touches me, but all I feel is a strange raw vibration. No texture. Nothing familiar. The gesture is hollow. "I will come to see about you again soon. Bonne chance."Noble disappears into the wall. From the window, I see him drift over the surface of the pool and through the narrow bars of the wrought-iron fence.Copyright ©2005 by Ronlyn Domingue

From AudioFile

In 1920's New Orleans, Raziela Nolan dies in her lover, Andrew's, arms in a drowning accident, but "Razi" remains "between" life and death. Seventy years later, in a quest to find out what happened to Andrew, she inhabits the home of Scott and Amy, Andrew's granddaughter and her husband, and not only finds her truth, but also helps the young couple save their marriage. Taking advantage of Domingue's magnificent language, Kate Forbes's Razi is mischievous and earthy, not at all ethereal. As Amy, she dramatically portrays a contemporary Razi. In both women there is an intensity of purpose, a softly intoned romanticism, and, above all, a determination to live life to the fullest. M.T.B. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About the Author

Ronlyn Domingue is the author of The Chronicle of Secret Riven, The Mapmaker’s War, and The Mercy of Thin Air, which was published in ten languages. Her essays and short stories have appeared in several print and online publications, including New England Review, Shambhala Sun, and The Nervous Breakdown. Connect with her on RonlynDomingue.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

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