The plot of Everyday Mercies is simple and familiar: a family gathers in rural Wisconsin for Thanksgiving. Things happen, relationships shift, secrets are revealed. During the weekend everybody changes, although some realize it more than others.
Evie Yoder Miller’s genius is in showing these shifts, which are both subtle and monumental, exactly as they happen, from every character’s point of view, in conversations in which “trying to change the subject was like trying to turn a steering wheel in snow when your tires are locked,” woven with unspoken thoughts. Nobody writes better–with humor and affection–about family life and generational divisions and alliances.
There is the perfectionist hostess (“For Charlotte it’s no small miracle that the food is all prepared. When she determines to rise above petty annoyances, she’s a marvel to behold”) and her mother, temporarily living in and finding herself in the way: “I have to let things go, if I want Charlotte to tolerate me. She doesn’t see that tin foil can be wiped clean and used again. Aluminum foil, she calls it. I have to tell myself: it’s hers to throw away.”
There is the basement-dwelling teenage basketball star and the PC uncle and his New-Agey wife, who bring the uninvited guest. Most of us have played the role of the main character, Carrie, the child who has gone away and come back. We’ve felt, with her, that “whatever we want–what we most need–family can’t give. Or not give enough”:
“When she’s far away in southern Ohio, she regards her family with such warmth. Not that they’re tight–she’d never go that far–but things sure feel better when she’s away than when she comes home. Her memories of her mom have been wrapped in tissue paper.”
You could say, too, that nobody writes better about rural Mennonites–“religious people who find meaning in where you park your car (your buggy?). Not first in line; not on someone’s grass after a hard rain; not where you can’t back out if you need to leave suddenly.” People who know that “no human being can ever be good enough, because no one can be perfect like Jesus. But you have to try, and then not take any credit.”
But forget the stereotypes because these family members are not all rural and they are not all Mennonites any more. Their diversity, in fact, makes this novel both a realistic portrayal of this particular social group and a story with universal themes and appeal. We have all been at gatherings like these, where family members “come together, rub shoulders, laugh, and deflect blows. The calm facade can continue for the sake of surface unity, until one person’s desire gathers enough heft to come up against another’s expectation. Then voices rise, questions ripple in the clash to establish a different order.”
This novel invites us to approach these family times with open eyes and ears; to let affection outweigh judgment; to welcome the new order.