The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

Mercy Birdsall is an attractive woman with dark curly hair and olive skin; she usually wears colorful dresses and red horn-rimmed glasses. Throughout her entire adult life, she has worked for her family’s undertaking and funeral services business, Birdsall and Son. She and her family live in the border town of Eternity on the island of Bushong. After her father’s heart attack six months ago, she became the de facto undertaker for the business, although her family expects her younger brother, Zeddie, to return and officially take over the business when he graduates from trade school.

Mercy is the second protagonist and point-of-view character in the novel, and her chapters alternate with Hart’s. Bubbly and optimistic, Mercy has a beloved dog named Leonard. After Mercy’s mother died years ago, Mercy took charge of the family’s business management and finances and raised her younger siblings, Zeddie and Lillian. However, she genuinely loves her job as an undertaker, believing that she offers a valuable service that comforts grieving loved ones and helps the dead reach their rightful places with the Unknown God. Mercy becomes the receptacle for each family member’s secrets, which she keeps to herself even when honesty and openness would benefit the whole family. Her conflict with her family illustrates the novel’s thematic focus on The Tension between Duty and Ambition.

Mercy harbors a deep hostility for Hart due to their disastrous first meeting. As time goes on, their animosity becomes reflexive, leading her to antagonize Hart preemptively in order to prevent him from hurting her—a strategy that routinely fails. She finds Hart attractive despite herself and is delighted when their relationship eventually shifts from antagonism to romance. Her anonymous letters to Hart support the theme of Seeking New Connections to Overcome Loneliness, particularly because she is more willing than Hart to embrace the vulnerability that is necessary for building lasting relationships.

Nineteen-year-old Penrose Duckers is a new recruit to the Tanrian Marshals and is assigned to Hart as his apprentice. Penrose is young, enthusiastic, and friendly. He quickly sees beyond Hart’s hard-nosed persona and perceives the compassionate man beneath. As the two work together, Duckers comes to view Hart as a father figure, just as Hart once viewed his own mentor, Bill, in a similar fashion. Though Duckers is young, he works to support his mother and four siblings.

Duckers and Zeddie begin dating after their first meeting, falling in love quickly. Duckers therefore spends a great deal of time with the Birdsall family. He is the first to notice the romantic tension between Hart and Mercy and bluntly tells Hart that he should be honest about his true feelings for Mercy. Duckers both advocates for honesty and embodies this trait throughout the novel, urging Hart to come clean about his secrets and lies. Though the novel primarily focuses on the developing romance between Hart and Mercy, Duckers’s softening influence on Hart is crucial to the protagonist’s character development, for Duckers’s presence forces Hart to take responsibility and behave more like an adult.

Alma Maguire was once Hart’s partner in the field, and although she is now his boss at the Marshal Station, she is still his closest friend. Like Hart, she too is a demigod, but unlike Hart, she knows who her divine parent is and has even maintained a relationship with the goddess who is her mother. Several years ago, Alma and Hart had a painful fight about Hart’s mentor, Bill, and they have not been able to fully mend their friendship in the years since. Alma’s wife, Diane, is Hart’s other close friend, and both Alma and Diane are Hart’s only real family. Both women worry about Hart’s inability to make connections or build a fulfilling life. Hart’s difficulties in maintaining his friendship with Alma highlight his fear of living and his resistance to enduring emotional discomfort.

Zeddie Birdsall is the youngest of the Birdsall children. He has been away at college for two years, ostensibly training to be the next official undertaker for the family business. The family plans for Zeddie to take over as the primary undertaker, which will allow Mercy to return to her former duties as office manager, which have suffered since their father’s heart attack. However, upon Zeddie’s return, he reveals to Mercy that he has failed his funeral services degree. This throws Mercy’s plans into disarray and forces her to keep secrets from the rest of the family.

Zeddie is self-centered and remains stubbornly unaware of Mercy’s true passion for the vocation of undertaking. Zeddie’s determination to follow his own path in life also highlights one aspect of The Tension between Duty and Ambition. He is determined to follow his dreams of becoming a chef and has no regard for the effect that this decision will have on his family. When Zeddie develops a romance with Hart’s apprentice, Pen Duckers, this connection forms a contrast to the dynamics that arise between Mercy and Hart. The romance also allows Duckers to gain a unique level of access to the Birdsall family: an advantage that Hart lacks. This aspect of the narrative further complicates the issues of secrecy and trust that eventually come to light.

Roy Birdsall is Mercy’s father and the owner of Birdsall and Son. Though he is inept at the office management and financial aspects of the business, he is highly skilled at all other aspects of being an undertaker, and he taught Mercy everything she knows about the vocation. However, after experiencing a heart attack six months before the events of the novel, he has had to stop working and focus on his health, leaving Mercy in charge. However, because of his adherence to the cultural expectation that men, not women, should be undertakers, he persists in the misguided belief that his son Zeddie will eventually take his place, and he does not immediately recognize Mercy’s talent and passion for the work.

Lillian Birdsall is the middle sibling and Mercy’s closest confidante. She often provides a balance between Zeddie’s self-centeredness and Mercy’s habit of sacrificing her own needs for the sake of the family. Lillian was a math teacher for several years before marrying Danny. The two have recently returned from a traveling around the islands of Cadmus. Lillian is pregnant and asks Mercy to keep this fact a secret. Despite some initial conflict, Lillian eventually becomes Mercy’s primary support and helps her find a solution to the family’s financial problems. She represents a middle ground in The Tension between Duty and Ambition, and her support allows both Mercy and Zeddie to pursue their own life goals.

Curtis Cunningham is the primary antagonist of the novel. He is the owner of a rival funeral service and is trying to crush all of his competition through nefarious means. Throughout the novel, he uses charm, intimidation, and underhanded business tactics to try to force Mercy and Roy to sell their business to him. He also orchestrates a complicated fraud scheme to steal federal funding by artificially increasing the number of drudges in Tanria. Unbeknownst to the marshals, he causes the increase in drudge attacks, which leads to many deaths. Cunningham is motivated by monetary greed, as evidenced by his attempts to defraud the government and his exorbitant prices for funeral services.