Mercy Hill by Hannah Thurman: A haunting portrait of family, control, and the quiet damage we call devotion

The most unsettling thing about Mercy Hill by Hannah Thurman is how easily it convinces you that everything happening might, in some warped way, be justified—right up until it isn’t.

Set against the crumbling infrastructure of a state-run psychiatric hospital in North Carolina at the turn of the millennium, Thurman’s debut follows the four Cross sisters—JJ, Caro, Mimi, and Denise—who have grown up on the grounds of Mercy Hill under the rule of their formidable mother, Lisa Cross, head of psychiatry and self-appointed savior of the institution. From the outside, it’s a story about mental healthcare in America and the slow dismantling of public systems. From the inside, it’s something far more intimate and far more disturbing. Because what this novel is really about is a mother who conscripts her children into her life’s work.

Lisa Cross doesn’t just encourage her daughters to help—she expects it. Demands it. They are, in theory, volunteers. In practice, they are voluntold. Raised under an ironclad belief system where Mercy Hill must be protected at all costs, the girls grow up performing unpaid labor in an environment most adults would struggle to navigate. Thurman captures this dynamic with chilling precision. The sisters don’t initially recognize the imbalance because they’ve been conditioned not to. It reads, at times, less like a family and more like a closed system—a belief structure that edges uncomfortably close to something cult-like.

And that’s where the novel’s emotional power really takes hold. Lisa insists she’s giving her daughters everything she never had: exposure, purpose, a future in medicine. She envisions them all becoming doctors, carrying on her legacy. What she never does—what she seemingly cannot do—is ask what they want. Her life is wholly devoted to the mental well-being of her patients, yet she remains profoundly blind to the emotional needs of her own children. The irony is sharp, intentional, and deeply uncomfortable.

Reading this reminded me of my time working in a university psychology department, where I’d sit in on conversations about microaggressions and bias—only to then watch those same professors turn around and commit microaggressions against their office staff without a second thought. That same disconnect pulses through Mercy Hill. The people who understand the language of care the best are often the ones who fail to practice it when it matters most.

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As the sisters move into adolescence and adulthood, the cracks widen. Each one rebels—or collapses—differently, carving out her own path away from their mother’s suffocating expectations. And every one of those paths reads, in Lisa’s eyes, as failure. It’s a painful, almost inevitable unraveling, and Thurman resists the urge to soften it. There are no easy redemptions here, no sweeping reconciliations that tie things up neatly.

What makes the novel especially effective is its restraint. The prose is tight, controlled, and refreshingly concise for a literary family drama. Thurman doesn’t over-explain or indulge in excess sentimentality. Instead, she lets the tension accumulate in quiet moments—conversations half-finished, expectations unspoken but clearly understood, small decisions that carry enormous emotional weight.

Denise, the youngest and the novel’s narrator, serves as the final thread holding everything together—or trying to. As the last remaining believer in her mother’s vision, she shoulders a burden that feels both inherited and imposed. Her perspective adds a layer of reflection to the story, capturing not just what happened, but how it felt to live inside something she didn’t yet have the language to question.

By the time the novel reaches its conclusion, Mercy Hill itself feels less like a setting and more like a pressure chamber—one that shapes everyone inside it, often in ways they won’t fully understand until it’s far too late.

Mercy Hill is not an easy read, but it’s an absorbing one. Thurman has written a debut that interrogates ambition, sacrifice, and the stories we tell ourselves to justify harm—especially when that harm is done in the name of something that sounds noble.

The novel releases May 5, 2026, and it’s well worth adding to your list if you’re drawn to character-driven literary fiction that isn’t afraid to get uncomfortable. What do you think—does a parent’s sense of purpose ever justify this kind of control, or is it always a line crossed? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Related Content

• Book Launch: Hannah Thurman with Olivia Wolfgang-Smith (Greenlight Bookstore – Brooklyn, NY)
• Childhood, interrupted: PW talks with Hannah Thurman (Publishers Weekly)
• May 2026 anticipated book releases (That Bookish Life)

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