Mercy

'I wasn't raped until I was almost ten which is pretty good it seems when I ask around because many have been touched but are afraid to say'. In this stark, powerful and uncompromising novel Andrea Dworkin recreates the experiences of her narrator, a young woman repeatedly raped from childhood to womanhood. The result is "Mercy", a monumental work of fiction which asks the questions: In a culture which still believes that rape is every woman's fantasy, how is it possible to tell our story? How do we make ourselves heard? How are we to be believed? And finally, when woman and children are being raped, tortured and abused every minute of every day, where is God? Are we His pornography? In this inspired and brilliantly sustained novel, Dworkin's narrator takes us on her terrifying journey through the man's world in which we all live. She becomes a forceful and potent symbol of the struggle of all women for dignity, self determination and, above all, freedom.