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Literary Nonfiction. Women's Studies. When Marcia Trahan began watching true crime television, she did so in secret. She felt ashamed by her fascination with these violent stories, and how hungrily she consumed one gruesome tale after another. Only years later did she start to connect the dots between her true crime obsession and the series of invasive medical procedures that had left her feeling victimized and violated. Can the body tell the difference between an attacker's knife and a surgeon's? This is the central question in MERCY, a question that leads Trahan to re-examine her body's reaction to lifesaving medical treatment, the childhood experiences that first made her feel unsafe in her own skin, and the true crime genre's most common tropes. Part searingly honest memoir, part incisive cultural criticism, MERCY explores the appeal of true crime and the way so many of us live our whole lives bracing for an attack.