Hannah Thurman | Mercy Hill
Schedule
Wed May 20 2026 at 06:30 pm to 07:30 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Quail Ridge Books | Raleigh, NC
About this Event
ABOUT THE EVENT
Tickets include a copy of Mercy Hill, guaranteed entry to the event, and a seat in the reserved section. Hannah will sign books after the program.
All live author events are subject to change. More information about our events can be found at quailridgebooks.com/eventsfaq.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A debut family novel about four sisters growing up on the campus of the underfunded state mental hospital where their strong-willed mother serves as head of psychiatry. A richly moving story of sisterhood, loyalty, and mental health in America.
The Cross sisters have lived their entire lives on the sprawling grounds of Mercy Hill, the embattled Raleigh mental hospital run by their formidable mother. Since childhood, JJ, Caro, Mimi, and Denise have been inculcated with their mother's mission: they'll work alongside her to protect Mercy Hill from the fate of other state hospitals across the country, which are being gutted and closed, one by one.
After an incident involving the highest-security ward, Mercy Hill faces greater scrutiny than ever, and Lisa Cross pushes each of her daughters even harder in the name of her mission. As the sisters cross into adulthood, the pressures of their isolated environment and mercurial mother set them on different—and perilous—paths. And as the battle wages on, youngest sister and narrator Denise grapples with the added responsibility that comes from being the last hope for their mother’s dreams.
Set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with Mercy Hill’s fate hanging in the balance, Denise recounts the transformations that shape and destroy her family, along with the landscape of mental healthcare in the United States. With sharp insight and real humor, debut novelist Hannah Thurman captures the turmoil of growing up, the true meaning of a calling, and the indelible bonds of family.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HANNAH THURMAN is a Brooklyn-based writer originally from Raleigh. She was recently named a 2024 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction. The winner of the Florida Review’s 2023 Editor’s Prize for Fiction, her stories have been published in The Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Brooklyn Rail, and Southern Indiana Review, among others. She has been chosen for residencies at Yaddo, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. This is her first novel.
Where is it happening?
Quail Ridge Books, 4209-100 Lassiter Mill Road, Raleigh, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00 to USD 33.69
