To Love Mercy

Frank S. Joseph's debut novel evokes nostalgia at the same time that it confronts difficult questions of race and ethnicity in segregated Chicago of the late 1940s. The book chronicles a day and night in the life of two young boys--one black, one white--who unexpectedly find themselves lost in the city, exploring with the innocent enthusiasm of children while their families tear each other apart in fear. The racial tensions threaded through the novel come to a climax as the families meet to reunite with their children and personal choices are weighed with a shattering clarity against the pressures of the city.

Frank S. Joseph cut his teeth as a writer at the famous > training-ground City News Bureau of Chicago. He worked at The > Associated Press covering the Democratic National Convention street disorders, the Detroit riot, Dr.> Martin Luther King's march into Cicero, Illinois, and almost every > ghetto uprising and incident of urban violence that defined the > turbulent mid-'60s in Chicago. Joseph was an editor with The > Washington Post during the Watergate years and, in 1982, he founded > Key Communications Group Inc., a specialized-information publishing company.> He and his wife, Carol Jason, a sculptor and artist, met in Chicago > and now live in Chevy Chase, Maryland. They are the parents of Shawn and Sam.