63 pages 2 hours read

David Adams Richards

Mercy Among the Children

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Part 4, Chapter 8-Afterword

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “Redemption”

Part 4, Chapter 8-Afterword Summary

Lyle leaves Percy alone to murder Connie Devlin. Inside Connie’s house he finds his father’s duffel bag on the floor and Connie hanging from the wardrobe. Lyle cuts Connie down. Connie confesses he has spent most of Sydney’s $25,000. Connie tells Lyle how he slowed Sydney’s progress and stole his money. Sydney had appendicitis yet helped Connie up from a ledge where he’d fallen. When Sydney reached Connie, Connie told him to give him his boots and that he would go and get help. Sydney asked Connie to take his poems and the money to Elly. Sydney hallucinated and began speaking to Elly. Connie left Sydney’s poetry there and a group of students picked him up. He tells Lyle he couldn’t face going back for Sydney.

Cynthia and Gladys try to take Leo in the car, but Leo believes that she will take him to Mat Pit. Cynthia sees two dots in the distance, Mat and Rudy. Mat and Rudy smash the kitchen window and break in. Cynthia, Gladys, and Leo hide. Rudy cannot open the safe, so Mat drags it to the window and throws it out. Leo fetches Gladys’s bag, which has a phone in it, but Cynthia remembers she had taken the phone to the car.