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WORK TITLE: The Mercy of the Tide
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PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.keithrosson.com/
CITY:
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http://www.npr.org/2017/02/22/515433513/adolescence-isnt-the-only-horror-in-the-mercy-of-the-tide
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no 97072161
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no97072161
HEADING: Rosson, Keith
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670 __ |a One for the underdogs, c1997: |b t.p. (Keith Rosson)
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Male.
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Author and illustrator.
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Contributor to periodicals, including Cream City Review, December, Nervous Breakdown, Pank, Razorcake, and Rebel Noise.
SIDELIGHTS
Keith Rosson’s debut novel is The Mercy of the Tide, the story of how four small-town Oregon natives try to heal following a bad accident. “It’s a character-driven novel for sure,” Rosson said in his My Life My Books My Escape website interview. “A fatal car accident has left four people trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after having lost loved ones. Dave Dobbs, the town sheriff, has lost his wife, June. Sam Finster, a high school senior, and Trina, his nine year-old sister, have lost their mother, Melissa. Nick Hayslip, Dobbs’s deputy, is also reeling.” Riptide, their home, is “a sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire,” Rosson related in My Life My Books My Escape. “But then strange things start happening—a human skeleton is unearthed in a local park and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town’s beaches. The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives—leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever.”
In addition to being a horror story, stated Jason Heller in an NPR review, The Mercy of the Tide is also “a coming-of-age tale, a family drama, a crime procedural, and an eerie piece of American magical realism. It even reveals itself to be an alternate-history yarn, in a subtle way that never fully manifests until the end of the story–just as everyone washes up on the beach at Wolf Point like carefully orchestrated driftwood caught in the ebb and flow of fate.” “Rosson does a really good job distinguishing the different perspectives of his characters because it allowed me to learn more about them individually,” declared Jessica Duffield on the Paperback Paris website. The author “has a real gift for vivid description,” declared a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “and for creating anguished characters who deserve … hope.”
Critics enjoyed Rosson’s fictional debut. “This novel is paced slowly, almost excruciatingly,” wrote a reviewer for the Girl with a Pretty Keyboard website. “It is filled with rich detail and extensive character exploration so that I felt each and every pang of despair, guilt, grief, and fear.” “Audiences,” stated Robin Farrell Edmunds in Foreword Reviews, “will relish uncovering the mysterious goings-on that permeate a small town in Keith Rosson’s chilling The Mercy of the Tide.” Rosson, concluded Deanna Chapman on the Hifi Noise website, is “a writer who is now on my list of ‘check out everything they release.’”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2017, review of The Mercy of the Tide, p. 41.
ONLINE
Foreword Reviews, https://www.forewordreviews.com/ (March-April, 2017), Robin Farrell Edmunds, review of The Mercy of the Tide.
Girl with a Pretty Keyboard, http://www.girlwithaprettykeyboard.com/ (December 6, 2016), review of The Mercy of the Tide.
Hifi Noise, https://hifinoise.com/ (February 21, 2017), review of The Mercy of the Tide.
My Life My Books My Escape, https://mylifemybooksmyescape.wordpress.com/ (June 7, 2017), “Author Interview: Keith Rosson.”
NPR, http://www.npr.org/ (February 22, 2017), Jason Heller, review of The Mercy of the Tide.
Pank Magazine, https://pankmagazine.com/ (August 19, 2010), “Ask the Author: Keith Rosson.”
Paperback Paris, http://www.paperbackparis.com/ (April 24, 2017), Jessica Duffield, review of The Mercy of the Tide.
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Ask the Author: Keith Rosson
POSTED ON AUGUST 19, 2010
Keith Rosson’s finely detailed At This Table appears in the July issue and he talks with us about aliases, spines as a building block and quiet acts of bravery.
1. What alias would you take up when eating at a diner where no one knows who you are?
Well, I wouldn’t really need an alias then. Right? I mean, I don’t want to come across as ungrateful or anything, but what would I need an alias for? What kind of illegal shit do you think I’d do at a diner, man?
I guess the only alias I go by these days is The Dude Who’s Getting Kind Of Pudgy Now That He’s Quit Smoking And No Matter How Many Supposedly Cool Tattoos He Gets He Still Just Kind Of Looks A Little Goofy.
2. Whose spine would you make a table out of? Â What would you color it?
Whose– what? Whose  spine? Would I make a  table out of? Jesus Christ, man, what are you talking about? What the hell is this?
Not to be coarse, but I would most likely color it whatever color my throw-up was, because that’s what I’d be doing if you sat me in front of a table made of someone’s spine.
3. What is the worst way you’ve broken up with someone? Â How would you wish you could have done it instead?
Well, I’ve never done it in a restaurant, haunted or otherwise. Â Probably the worst way I’ve broken up with someone is when I made their spine into a table.
4. Who is your quietest act of bravery? Â Where did it happen?
Well, right now it’s a toss-up. I just moved to the Midwest after spending most of my life in the Pacific Northwest, feels reasonably brave to me. But I also feel like the act of writing fiction is also a solitary but pretty damn plucky act. Both of them entail navigating through a lot of trepidation and uncertainty and the idea of “sticking to your guns” even when things seem shitty or daunting.
5. If David Foster Wallace came back from the dead and challenged you to a footnote-off, would you do it? Â Â What would be the stakes?
If the man came back from the dead and I would pretty much be doing whatever he wanted. After, you know, most likely evacuating in my drawers. I doubt it’d be much of a challenge — he’d most likely just look at my, conveying his great disappointment in my capping of the footnotes thing, and I’d shrivel to a husk. I just wanted to write a really dense story and since I seem incapable of writing anything that doesn’t involve guns, robots or ghosts, this is what came forth, you know?
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ABOUTCONTACTBOOK REVIEWSINTERVIEWS/GUEST POSTSTHE TIME TRAVELER’S ALMANACTHE BASTARD READ-ALONGBEST OF LISTSGIVEAWAYS
JUN 07 2017
2 COMMENTS
INTERVIEW
AUTHOR INTERVIEW: KEITH ROSSON
Today I am interviewing Keith Rosson, author of the new literary/alternate history novel, The Mercy of the Tide.
◊ ◊ ◊
DJ: Hey Keith! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview!
For readers who aren’t familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Keith Rosson: Suuuuure. I’m an author and illustrator. Have a new book out, my first novel. Let’s see. I, uh, love libraries and book sales and halftones and distressed text and cassettes and punk. I did a long-running punk zine called Avow for years and years and then made the leap to fiction. The Mercy of the Tide is the fourth novel I’ve written in my life, and the first to be published. I wrote my first novel at 20, and it was understandably baaaaaaad. Then I wrote my second at 27 or so, and it was still pretty bad. Then I wrote my third, and it was better (titled Smoke City, it will be published in January 2018 by my glorious publisher, Meerkat Press) and then I wrote Mercy. In between, I write for music publications Razorcake and Rebel Noise, as well as penning short stories which have been published in placed like PANK, December, Cream City Review, the Nervous Breakdown, and more. Been twice nominated for a Pushcart. Finalist for the New American Fiction Prize and Birdwhistle Prize for Short Fiction. Currently writing a novel that revolves somewhat around a unicorn – no, seriously! – but there’s a significant part of me that can’t wait to finish it and get back to writing short stories.
DJ: What is The Mercy of the Tide about?
Keith: Can I just use the synopsis that the Meerkat folks and I came up with? After working on this book for so long and then hustling it for as hard as we have, I’ve kinda run out of wacky adjectives and new ways to describe it. Here goes. Riptide, Oregon, 1983. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire. But then strange things start happening—a human skeleton is unearthed in a local park and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town’s beaches. The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives—leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever. That work?
DJ: What were some of your influences for The Mercy of the Tide?
Keith: Ooof. Tough one. I think it’s tough to avoid writing anything horror-related – and lofty literary elements aside, there are strong nods to horror in Mercy – without acknowledging the debt to Stephen King. He’s just the go-to guy in that field, at least for me. There’s also a passible nod to Robert McCammon’s Swan Song, if only for the fact that how deftly he handled so many points of view as well. Beyond that, I read a lot of fiction, and if you can blend literary stuff with genre fiction, I’m all in. All that stuff is bound to cause a collective seep, as it were. Which, as a side note, is a pretty good name for a grindcore band.
DJ: Could you briefly tell us a little about your main characters? Do they have any cool quirks or habits, or any reason why readers with sympathize with them?
Keith: I hope – and so far it seems like I did an okay job – that it’s their humanness that makes them compelling and relatable. It’s a character-driven novel for sure. A fatal car accident has left four people trying to pick up the pieces of their lives after having lost loved ones. Dave Dobbs, the town sheriff, has lost his wife, June. Sam Finster, a high school senior, and Trina, his nine year-old sister, have lost their mother, Melissa. Nick Hayslip, Dobbs’s deputy, is also reeling from the accident, but for a reason that isn’t revealed until later in the book. I think they’re all written in a way that lends to being relatable – they’re all flawed, and they all have their moments of grace or bravery or love, just like all of us.
DJ: What is the world and setting of The Mercy of the TIde like?
Keith: Well, it’s an alternate history novel set on the Oregon coast in the 1980s. Everything is generally the same as it is in this plane or universe or whatever – though soon enough, small changes start to appear that show you this one’s like our world but not quite. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’ll say that the alternate reality stuff is a slow reveal; it’s really a secondary element to the book. Characters and story first, weird alternate history stuff next, you know?
DJ: What was your favorite part about writing The Mercy of the Tide?
Keith: You know, when the writing is going well, there’s nothing better. It’s the most fun I can have as a person, really. I love it. It’s life-affirming and joyous. I love fitting the jigsaw pieces of plot together, trying to figure out loopholes or glaring errors, and once the story is solidly pieced together (usually around the 3rd complete edit), then I really get into messing around with sentence structure and tone and all that other good stuff. But it takes a few run-throughs to get to that point. I love it when the bulk of the story’s there and I get to fine-tune all the little bits and pieces.
DJ: What do you think readers will be talking about most once they finish it?
Keith: I hope they talk about the quality of the writing, and how much they cared about these people, and that they liked the story, even if it was grim. But ultimately, that’s out of my hands – books really take on a life of their own after you write em, you know? Which is the biggest reason why I think it’s in terribly poor taste to ever respond to a negative review or lambast a negative reviewer, even – especially – if you feel slighted or misrepresented: the story isn’t yours anymore, once it goes out into the world. In some ways, it’s everyone’s. At least in the sense that now anyone at all can react to it however they want.
DJ: Now that The Mercy of the Tide is released, what is next for you?
Keith: I mentioned earlier that I’m writing a novel that somewhat revolves around a unicorn sighting, so there’s that. It’s taken quite a while to put together, and there’s still a lot of work to be done. (“Writing is hard,” he wrote.) In the meantime, Meerkat Press is publishing my second novel, Smoke City, in January 2018, which I’m incredibly excited about. It’s a marked departure from Mercy in a lot of ways: tone and pacing, for one – this one’s less dense, a quicker read, and with a bit more grim hilarity to it. I hope it’s different, anyway. And after I tackle the unicorn book and my beta readers kindly savage it and my agent kindly savages it and then I fix it and he sends it out to editors to consider, I just cannot wait to get back to writing short stories. I miss them fiercely.
DJ: Where can readers find out more about you?
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Keith-Rosson/e/B01MZ5B05P
Facebook: www.facebook.com/keith.rosson.7
Goodreads: Keith_Rosson
Twitter: @keith_rosson
Website: keithrosson.com
DJ: Before we go, what is that one thing you’d like readers to know about The Mercy of the Tide that we haven’t talked about yet?
Keith: I’m being a liiiiittle obtuse here, but not one reviewer has mentioned the black doors yet. Not a one. I find that pretty surprising. (This will make sense if/when folks read the book.)
DJ: Is there anything else you would like add? (Or add your own question).
Keith: I guess I’d just like to mention that if you come across a book that you really enjoy, let people know! It means so much to the people involved to hear that stuff! A tweet or a review or a recommendation – be it on Twitter, Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook, your own blog, whatever – can be massively helpful to authors and their publishers, many of whom are taking pretty big risks by putting books out these days. Let people know! I feel super fortunate to have met a lot of great readers already, and especially for us debut authors, every bit helps.
DJ: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to answer my questions!
Keith: Thank YOU for having me. I appreciate it. Catch ya on the flipside.
◊ ◊ ◊
◊ ◊ ◊
*** The Mercy of the Tide is published by Meerkat Press and is available TODAY!!! ***
Buy the Book:
Amazon | Barnes & Nobel | Goodreads | Kobo | Publisher
◊ ◊ ◊
About the Book:
Riptide, Oregon, 1983. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire. But then strange things start happening—a human skeleton is unearthed in a local park and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town’s beaches.
The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives—leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever. At the heart of the story are Sam Finster, a senior in high school mourning the death of his mother, and his sister Trina, a nine-year-old deaf girl who denies her grief by dreaming of a nuclear apocalypse as Cold War tensions rise. Meanwhile, Sheriff Dave Dobbs and officer Nick Hayslip must try to put their own sorrows aside to figure out who, or what, is wreaking havoc on their once-idyllic town.
Keith Rosson paints outside the typical genre lines with his brilliant debut novel. It is a gorgeously written book that merges the sly wonder of magical realism and alternate history with the depth and characterization of literary fiction.
About the Author:
Keith Rosson is the author of the novels The Mercy of the Tide and Smoke City, and his short fiction has appeared in Cream City Review, PANK, December, The Nervous Breakdown, and more. He’s been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a finalist for the Birdwhistle Prize for Short Fiction. He’s also an illustrator and graphic designer, with clients that include Green Day, Against Me, the Goo Goo Dolls, and others. A fierce advocate of public libraries and non-ironic adulation of the cassette tape, he can be found at keithrosson.com.
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Tagged author interview, keith rosson, meerkat press, the mercy of the tide
2 thoughts on “Author Interview: Keith Rosson”
Meerkat Press says:
June 7, 2017 at 8:16 am
great interview!
Liked by 1 person
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@lynnsbooks says:
June 7, 2017 at 5:32 pm
What an intriguing interview – especially the ‘black doors’ – I want to know what that’s all about now.
Lynn 😀
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Print Marked Items
The Mercy of the Tide
Publishers Weekly.
264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p41.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* The Mercy of the Tide
Keith Rosson. Meerkat, $16.95 trade paper (294p) ISBN 978-0-9966262-4-8
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Blending horror and alternate history, this striking first novel takes its time familiarizing readers with the
small seacoast town of Riptide, Ore. It's late 1983, and the U.S. and Russia seem to be sliding toward
nuclear Armageddon. At least that's what nine-year-old Trina Finster believes, focusing on politics partly to
distract herself from sorrow over her mother's death. Her brother, Sam, and her father are also struggling
with personal grief, as are town sheriff Dave Dobbs and excruciatingly haunted deputy Nick Hayslip. When
they start finding the mutilated corpses of animals, they fear that a vicious shape-shifting monster out of
local Native American legend, the tah-kee-na-the, has reappeared to feed on sorrow and serve as a harbinger
of more awful events to come. Considering the international situation described in the novel, readers are left
uncertain whether any of the characters will survive in the long run. What is clear, though, is that Rosson
has a real gift for vivid description and for creating anguished characters who deserve a faint glimmer of
hope. Agent: Christopher Schelling, Selectric Artists. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Mercy of the Tide." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 41. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696498&it=r&asid=3116f0bc70c1b3e6514af8d50fb69b1d.
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Adolescence Isn't The Only Horror In 'The Mercy Of The Tide'
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February 22, 20177:00 AM ET
JASON HELLER
The Mercy of the Tide
The Mercy of the Tide
by Keith Rosson
Paperback, 283 pages purchase
Riptide, Ore., is a place to get lost in — not that you'd necessarily want to. It's 1983, and the sleepy coastal town is starting to get weird: Mutilated animals are turning up on the beach at Wolf Point, and the discovery of the skeleton of a Native American girl from over a century ago sparks something even stranger. Some kind of supernatural force appears to be on a rampage in Riptide, although its residents have plenty of man-made horrors to be concerned about as well. A recent, fatal car accident has cast a pall of tragedy over the town. The echoes of America's crimes against its indigenous peoples still haunt the area. And the Cold War is reaching critical mass, the threat of a nuclear holocaust looming on the horizon.
The Mercy of the Tide is the debut novel by Keith Rosson, who's better known as a zinemaker and graphic designer in the punk scene. Previously, his DIY background has only barely hinted at what he might be capable of as a novelist, but Mercy leaves no doubt: Rosson is a talent to be watched, and Riptide is one of the most immersive fictional settings in recent memory. The town is ripe with "rainwater gurgling in the gutter" and "the distended membranes of dead jellyfish washed ashore." Like the flotsam that litters Riptide's beaches, secrets and omens begin to wash up, accumulating and decaying. But Rossom smartly offsets this sumptuously oppressive atmosphere with the punch of '80s pop culture — Jordache jeans, Garbage Pail Kids, and The A-Team — which coalesces into a retro-surreal phantasmagoria rather than glib nostalgia.
Rosson is a talent to be watched, and Riptide is one of the most immersive fictional settings in recent memory.
Jason Heller
Rosson dwells on his setting, but he doesn't skimp on his characters. If anything, their psychic landscapes are even more fraught with darkness than Riptide's physical one. High school senior Sam Finster and his nine-year-old sister Trina are reeling from the death of their mother Melissa in a car wreck that also killed the wife of the town sheriff. The cause of the collision is still blurry, and that unresolved causality and grief weighs heavily on the survivors. Sam is tackling the tribulations of adolescence in the '80s, complete with unrequited crushes, teenage rebellion, and — this being Rosson's creation — punk rock. Trina, deaf since birth and uncannily precocious, has developed an obsession with nuclear warfare that spills over into her daily life. And Nick Hayslip, a Vietnam vet and the sheriff's deputy, hauls the tatters of his broken life through the sandy streets of Riptide — a state of existence that's sharpened to a knife's edge as he investigates the macabre goings-on around town.
The mystery at the heart of Mercy is soon overshadowed by the web of loss, grief, and consequence among the characters. Even the secondary players, from Sam's rebel confidante Toad to the apocalyptic zealot Joy Lyley, are etched vividly and sympathetically. It's still a horror story, but it's so much more: a coming-of-age tale, a family drama, a crime procedural, and an eerie piece of American magical realism. It even reveals itself to be an alternate-history yarn, in a subtle way that never fully manifests until the end of the story — just as everyone washes up on the beach at Wolf Point like carefully orchestrated driftwood caught in the ebb and flow of fate.
One thing the book is not as successful at is its portrayal of Native American culture, history, and mythology, which feels both stale and underdeveloped. In particular, Rosson's invention of the fictional Tumquala tribe, rather than using an actual one, comes across as a relic of the less enlightened '80s, a case of literary nostalgia ill serving contemporary sensibilities. But it's a small flaw in an otherwise absorbing story — a beautifully gloomy meditation on how lives tangle around each other, then tighten in the face of terror — and how modern destructive evils displace the ancient ones embedded in our bones.
Jason Heller is a senior writer at The A.V. Club, a Hugo Award-winning editor and author of the novel Taft 2012.
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The Mercy of the Tide, Keith Rosson: Book Review
Weird things are happening in Riptide.
by Jessica Duffield
April 24, 2017, 12:00 pm
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mercy of the tide keith rosson book review
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The Mercy of the Tide Book Cover Title: The Mercy of the Tide
Author: Keith Rosson
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Meerkat Press
Release Date: 2017
Format: Paperback
Pages: 283
Riptide, Oregon, 1983. A sleepy coastal town, where crime usually consists of underage drinking down at a Wolf Point bonfire. But then strange things start happening—a human skeleton is unearthed in a local park and mutilated animals begin appearing, seemingly sacrificed, on the town’s beaches.
The Mercy of the Tide follows four people drawn irrevocably together by a recent tragedy as they do their best to reclaim their lives—leading them all to a discovery that will change them and their town forever. At the heart of the story are Sam Finster, a senior in high school mourning the death of his mother, and his sister Trina, a nine-year-old deaf girl who denies her grief by dreaming of a nuclear apocalypse as Cold War tensions rise. Meanwhile, Sheriff Dave Dobbs and officer Nick Hayslip must try to put their own sorrows aside to figure out who, or what, is wreaking havoc on their once-idyllic town.
Keith Rosson paints outside the typical genre lines with his brilliant debut novel. It is a gorgeously written book that merges the sly wonder of magical realism and alternate history with the depth and characterization of literary fiction.
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Special thanks to Meerkat Press for allowing us to review Keith Rosson’s The Mercy of the Tide.
This review contains quotes from the book
Keith Rosson writes a well thought out novel about a series of mysterious incidents that occur in a small coastal town. However, this town as well as the people who inhabit it, have no idea what is about to happen next.
From the start, we learn there have been animals washing up on a beach, torn or ripped apart: a bird, a seal and so on. These events turn the town closer towards insanity because no one can explain just what is going on. Of course, in a true way of suspense, Rosson doesn’t give everything away, but instead, he rolls out little clues that don’t spare much of an explanation behind the peculiar phenomena. If anything, I think Rosson’s teasing these details is what makes the novel so interesting, and I personally admire authors who are able to have me hooked just by the first couple pages, as The Mercy of the Tide does so well.
The novel is set in 1983 in a place called Riptide, Oregon, and we realize later on that there is significance in this particular time period. Throughout the novel, Rosson makes references to this year because the United States and the Soviet Union were in the middle of the Cold War. Trina Finster, one of the narrators of the story, becomes obsessed with the happenings of the Cold War as well. We also learn that, by recollecting this time, it also helps her cope with her mother’s passing. Albeit Trina’s somewhat hyper-awareness of this memory and her rememberings of the war eventually onset her paranoia of another nuclear war.
Eventually, we learn the sudden appearances of animal carcasses washing up ashore were due in part to som unknown predator that has supposedly been around since 1868. With each animal being eaten in half, it was believed the animal to blame might have been a huge beast of some kind. In knowing this, we see how each out our four narrators respond to the fatalities. Sam Finster, Nick Hayslip, Dave Dobbs and Trina Finster all describe their own accounts of the mysterious happenings in their beach town. I personally liked this approach because it allowed me to sympathize with each character before the book gets into the nitty-gritty stuff.
Sam is a teenager trying to raise his sister because his dad is always working and his mom died in a car accident; Nick is the troublemaker of the group, he has a drinking problem and we realize he was involved with Sam and Trina’s mother before she passed; Dave considers himself the man in charge because he is the police chief who doesn’t take crap from anyone; Trina is a deaf nine-year-old girl who is still lamenting mother’s sudden death. Rosson does a really good job distinguishing the different perspectives of his characters because it allowed me to learn more about them individually.My favorite character was Sam Finster because I was able to connect with him more. All I wanted to do was take care of his sister, and that is all I want to do with my sister. I know what it is like to look out for a sibling, and Sam does this so well. I feel like we could have been friends if he was real.
My favorite character was Sam because I was able to resonate with him most and his will to look after his sister. I was really endearing to see, as it is something I would do for my sister as well. On a personal level, I know the struggles associated with caring for a younger sibling, and Sam does this so well in the story. I felt like we could have been friends if he was someone I met in real life. I think the fact that Rosson made his characters so relatable made them all the more enjoyable to read.
With that being said, however, there were some things I didn’t enjoy about the book. For instance, the sentences were really long; Rosson would often write out more details and information into one sentence than I felt was necessary. It made it really difficult to focus sometimes but I felt like had I not read everything in its entirety I would have missed out on some important plot points. I felt as though there were even some run-on sentences which made it confusing for me to follow since I had to really pay attention to every little detail in his sentences.
An example of this is found in the first chapter of the book when reading Dave Dobbs’ perspective:
Dobbs had been seated in his chair for a grand total of seven minutes or so- just enough time to look over the upcoming day’s patrol roster and the previous evening’s meager arrests, enough for a few sips of sad, scorched Yuban in a Styrofoam cup, for the slivered ache in his heart to be quelled slightly with the familiarity of the morning’s routine- when one of his deputies, Nick Hayslip, rapped his knuckles on the open door.
—excerpt from Keith Rosson’s The Mercy of the Tide
However, one of the unique things I did find with Rosson’s writing is his way of describing central themes at the beginning of each chapter for each narrator’s introduction. We learn about each of their experiences, what they go through and what they’re all about, which is refreshing. Even though I am not privy to detective speak, I really enjoyed Rosson’s use of phrases like “Smoking cigarettes at the turnaround” and “Hayslip freezes,” which means that he froze while watching his police partner almost get killed by a maniac. Remains simply meaning whatever is left of something, like those that were discovered at Tumquala Park.
“A paper bag with sand in the bottom – Hayslip freezes – Smoking cigarettes at the turnaround -You got to knuckle up – Trina sees the news – Signing – What does it say about you when you can’t remember her name? – Hayslip gets reprimanded – Remains”
—excerpt from Keith Rosson’s The Mercy of the Tide
All in all, I recommend this novel to anyone who is looking for a unique mystery. Even though it may turn out to be a bit tricky getting around the lengthy sentences, I wouldn’t let that discourage you from reading this novel. It’s decent and deserves to be read.
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THE MERCY OF THE TIDE
Keith Rosson
Meerkat Press (Feb 21, 2017)
Softcover $16.95 (296pp)
978-0-9966262-4-8
Mysterious goings-on permeate a small town in this chilling novel.
A deadly car accident binds four citizens together in the quiet hamlet of Riptide, Oregon, and it seems also to have awakened something unseemly. Keith Rosson’s The Mercy of the Tide is an exquisitely honed, beautifully written novel.
High school senior Sam Finster and his deaf nine-year-old sister, Trina, mourn their mother, who was allegedly driving drunk when she hit the town’s kindly librarian and the wife of its sheriff, Dave Dobbs. Also mourning is deputy Nick Hayslip, who was secretly having an affair with Melissa Finster. The accident brings to the forefront long-suppressed memories of his time in Vietnam, and he wrestles with these while trying to maintain law and order in the oceanside town.
The story unfolds from the varying viewpoints of Sam, Trina, Dave, and Nick, as each tries to cope with their pain. Trina turns to reading books about nuclear war and expresses an unhealthy obsession with US–Russia relations. Sam hangs with his longtime friend, and they plan their escapes after graduation. Dave dresses pillow cushions in his wife’s nightgown to retain her scent, and Nick falls off the wagon.
There are reports of small animals found torn apart on the beach, and then the kids find human remains while sledding in one of the town’s parks, named for a local Indian tribe.
And, always, there’s the West Coast weather, a perpetual dull rain, which seems to saturate every nuance of daily life—and death—in Riptide.
Authentic characters and the ambiance of the withering 1980s seaside town come through via writing rich in detail. Sam and his friend Toad don’t just listen to music, they rock out to the Ramones; the locals don’t just go to the bar, they hustle, chug, and flirt at the Sandy Bottom. The national timeline is somewhat joltingly skewed per the author’s choice, though.
Audiences will relish uncovering the mysterious goings-on that permeate a small town in Keith Rosson’s chilling The Mercy of the Tide.
Reviewed by Robin Farrell Edmunds
March/April 2017
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the author for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
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DECEMBER 6, 2016 RYLEA
[Book Review] The Mercy of the Tide — Keith Rosson
This review was written in exchange for a copy of the novel through Netgalley. It also appears on Goodreads and Amazon. I reviewed this book pre-publication. It is set to be released on February 21, 2017.
book-review-mercy-of-the-tide
The Mercy of the Tides is a character-driven modern psychological horror novel set in an alternate version of the 1980’s, where some magical realism exists, in the beach town of Riptide, Oregon. The story begins following a tragic car accident that takes the lives of two women, Melissa Finster and June Dobbs. The accident leaves their families and the entire town reeling in the wake of their deaths. This is only the beginning. Beneath the surface of the town’s grief and anger lies something much more sinister.
Sam and Trina Finster are siblings. They are close, as siblings go, both because Sam is protective of his deaf little sister and because he’s taking care of her after their mother died in the wreck. They grieve together and apart. Trina becomes more and more obsessed with the concept of nuclear warfare and the threat of the Cold War coming to fruition.
Nick Hayslip grieves silently for his married lover. Her death and the car wreck cause new dreams to surface from his time as a combat veteran of Vietnam. He doesn’t eat and he can’t sleep. As one of the town’s cops, he’s tasked with protecting the town. But, he seems to be the only one to see the new threat as it surfaces. His boss, Dave Dobbs, is the town Sheriff. He also lost his wife in the wreck. He’s grieving and lonely, trying to keep himself and the town together as things begin to go haywire.
This novel is paced slowly, almost excruciatingly. It is filled with rich detail and extensive character exploration so that I felt each and every pang of despair, guilt, grief, and fear. It’s a weird little novel but it’s gritty and deeply emotional, about the horrors just under the surface of the mundanity of everyday life.
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Book Review: ‘The Mercy of the Tide’ by Keith Rosson
FEBRUARY 21, 2017 ~ DEANNA CHAPMAN
The Mercy of the Tide could be considered Keith Rosson’s debut novel. While he’s written books before, this is the first one to be picked up by a publisher. I dove into this book knowing nothing about the author and very little about the book itself. It takes place in the fictional town of Riptide, Oregon, based off of Rosson’s hometown. Some portrayals of Oregon are accurate while others are twisted just enough to fit the story.
The story is told from the perspective of four different people: Sam Finster, Trina Finster, Dave Hobbs, and Nick Hayslip. They aren’t the only characters in the book by far, but the story largely revolves around them. Sam and Trina lost their mother, Dave lost his wife, and more bodies are discovered throughout the story.
When the story initially starts, there’s no way to know how it will end, unless you read books backwards, and I really hope you don’t. At first, the connection between the characters is unclear (except for Sam and Trina, who are brother and sister). As you make your way through the book it will take you on quite the ride. Piece by piece, Rosson guides you to the conclusion and nicely puts all off the connections together for you. It’s a great way to keep you engaged and wondering just what their actions have to do with one another.
Keith Rosson has shown that just because your first book doesn’t work (or maybe even a few books) doesn’t mean you can’t continue to hone your craft and release something wonderful. This book might not be for everyone. As I mentioned earlier, there are bodies found that come along with some vivid descriptions. And there are also some animal scenes that some may not be fond of. However, if you can handle those things, it would be irresponsible to not recommend this book. It’s a good read and the mostly short chapters make you feel like you’re speeding right through it (or is that something that only happens to me?).
Keith Rosson will have at least one more book coming in the future and I’m hoping for many more. He’s a writer who is now on my list of “check out everything they release.” If you’re interested you can grab a copy of the book via Amazon.
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