SOURCE: Kellman, Steven G. “Half in Love with Easeful Death.” Michigan Quarterly Review 36, no. 3 (summer 1997): 520-28.

In the following review, Kellman discusses In the Name of Mercy in the context of societal debates over doctor-assisted suicide, and compares Delbanco's novel to other books addressing the same issue. Kellman asserts that In the Name of Mercy holds little interest as a work of fiction, beyond its topical relevance to a current social problem.

To be or not to be is the most compelling of all literary questions. The illustrious cases of Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary, Phaedra, Willy Loman, Ophelia, Antigone, Dido, Romeo, Hedda Gabler, Jocasta, Othello, and Quentin Compson demonstrate that the literary tradition has not exactly fixed its canon 'gainst self-slaughter. For Albert Camus, “There is but one genuinely philosophic problem, and that is suicide.” It is a challenge, too, to law and medicine.

A retired pathologist named...