Merion Mercies — the New World Saga

America Happens Here.

Welcome to MERION MERCIES, the ground-breaking historical fiction series that chronicles the boundless American epic — spanning from the era of contesting Swedish and Dutch colonial outposts in Karakung, to the very fulcrum of independence in A New Constellation, to the dawn of the satellite age in Mohawk Four — and all unfolding fully within the Welsh Tract, a provincial ‘barony’ on the periphery of William Penn’s Greene Countrie Towne, Philadelphia.  Only 40,000-square acres, this bounteous, chromatic, and surprisingly consequential setting will captivate many a heart.  In 1787, a contemplative George Washington privately muses about retiring here, over Mount Vernon, impressed by the lush, pastoral landscape.  “A perfect garden,” notes a reflective President John Adams in 1800.  “Model Merion,” enthuses Theodore Roosevelt in 1917.

At this New World geographic and economic crossroads along the wending Schuylkill River’s western bank, generations of idealists, manifest dreamers, and commercial titans will intersect.  Heralded and forgotten, scoundrel and gallant, aristocrat and prole, émigré and establishment, pontiff and pauper.  Over the centuries, local contributions and everyday heroes will forge a dynamic continental character and dramatically impact world affairs.

Grounded in the encompassing, generous historical record, MERION MERCIES reveals the natives, immigrants, and passersby who traverse and cultivate the land, and influence global destinies:  Lenape tribesmen and frontier wives; religious exiles and fortune seekers; indentured servants and enslaved Africans; Tory loyalists and Fighting Quakers; abolitionist firebrands and Union Leaguers; Gilded Age tycoons and suffragist daughters; bootleggers and aviators; Nobel laureates, cultural icons, and counter-culture warriors.  Their radiant, raucous, entwined lives — vividly animated by author Andrew Hubsch — propel the bravura MERION MERCIES narrative, framing anew the emergent nation’s rollicking, enduring story.

Three times now, MERION MERCIES has successfully qualified as a Creative Writing (Prose) Fellowship finalist by the National Endowment for the Arts, most recently in FY 2016.  Likewise, the author’s complementary multimedia non-fiction effort — Mëneyung Banks/Schuylkill Selves, exploring America’s immigrant identities, all unfolding within the Schuylkill watershed — merited finalist consideration by the National Endowment for the Humanities, for a FY 2016 Research Fellowship.