The Mercy Step review: a child's-eye view of 1960s Bradford

Marcia Hutchinson's Women's Prize-nominated novel The Mercy Step tells the story of Mercy Hanson, a girl born in Bradford in 1962 to a mother she adores and a father she fears.

The audiobook, reviewed by the Guardian, follows Mercy — the spirited fifth child of the family — from birth through her toddler years and into primary education. There she discovers books for the first time, finding in them what the review calls a "delicious escape."

What happens in the novel?

The narrative is grounded in concrete, painful incident. In her first week at school, Mercy flees the classroom and runs all the way home after a teacher inadvertently kicks her in the forehead — and then denies it.

The episode prompts her God-fearing mother to march into the school and threaten the teacher with hellfire if she touches her daughter again.

Yet the review notes the limits of that protective instinct. Mercy's mother cannot shield herself or her children from her short-tempered husband, a man who is "very tall, a proper giant" and smokes Capstan Full Strength cigarettes.

He slaps Mercy in her crib when she cries. He viciously beats her wife — Mercy's mother — throughout the child's early years.

How does the review judge it?

The Guardian's verdict is concise: the author "captures the comedy and cruelty in this tenderly written coming-of-age tale."

The reviewer frames the novel as a Caribbean child's-eye view of 1960s Bradford, tracing how one working-class family navigates postwar northern England through the unfiltered perspective of its youngest daughter.

For listeners of literary fiction, the audiobook offers an entry point into a Women's Prize-nominated coming-of-age story that balances warmth with an unflinching account of domestic violence — and suggests Hutchinson's name will circulate further as the prize conversation continues.