Set in the 1680s, before American slavery hardened into its racial caste system. Morrison published A Mercy in 2008 to show that slavery was once an equal-opportunity brutality; the racial logic came later. The novel's final revelation (a mother's reason for giving up her daughter) reframes everything. Shorter and more concentrated than Beloved, it is Morrison's most underrated novel.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.