"'I suppose it really all started at Louise's home last night. They'd intended to go to Forley Park Social Centre Disco.' ... Rachel and Judie sat wordlessly, as the gruesome tale of the previous evening's horrendous events were recounted to them."
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Don't Beg For Mercy! by Robert Ginsberg Trafford Publishing
book review by Omar Figueras
This is a story of revenge and murder. Violence is replete throughout the book. Themes of blood and gore are constant as the protagonists are relentless in their mission to settle scores against their assailants.
The main characters–Judie, Lorna and Karen–are three intelligent, beautiful women that life deals a hard hand when individually attacked, raped, and brutalized. The author sets these carnage scenes early in the book in order to justify the subsequent events. Ginsberg's describes these atrocities with intimate detail, reliving every painful second of these nightmares. The women then meet and, through a women's underground organization they join, they exact their revenge on their attackers.
The structure of the novel is linear, and the story moves in a forward trajectory with little to no flashbacks. There are various uses of language as one of the characters is Italian, and Ginsberg peppers her speech liberally with from her mother tongue, but interestingly the author does not italicize these words. He allows them to float on the page, independent and free, like the characters in his book. Language is a prominent motif as a majority of the male assailants are seen as lowlife individuals and are depicted with rough English accents, and their speech is scripted in an eye dialect, mimicking their broken verbal patterns and thoughts.
Despite the harsh, brutal nature of the novel, the author conveys his story with verisimilitude and careful attention to detail. Ginsberg is unapologetic in bringing his harrowing story, and is demanding of his reader's attention in his telling it.