The Postmistress
Release date: 2010 / 352 pages
Synopsis (from the back cover): In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts. Iris knows more about the townspeople than she will ever say — for example, that Emma Trask has come to marry the town’s doctor, and than Harry Vale watches the ocean for U-boats. Iris believes her job is to deliver secrets. Yet one day she does the unthinkable: slips a letter into her pocket, reads it, and doesn’t deliver it…
First Sentence: There were years after it happened, after I’d returned from the town and come back here to the busy blank of the city, when some comment would be tossed off about the Second World War and how it had gone — some idiotic remark about clarity and purpose — and I’d resist the urge to stub out my cigarette and bring the dinner party to a satisfying halt.
Review: Some novels hover at the periphery of my attention — usually those that have grasped the hearts and minds of the mainstream reading public like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or Twilight – until the right opportunity or circumstances collide and I am able to experience what so many already have. The Postmistress is one of these novels and when TLC contacted me about reading and reviewing it, I knew the time was right and devoured Blake’s novel in two short days.
Similar to Guernsey or the The Help, The Postmistress is a novel I could recommend to most people with few reservations. The characterization and narrative momentum are extremely accessible, and the backdrop of WWII lends a significance or gravity to the time spent reading. In the supplemental reading The Story Behind the Story that is included in the paperback version, Blake states “I realized I wanted to write a war story that did not take place on the battlefield, but showed us around the edges of a war photograph or news report into the moments just after or just before what we read or see or hear… [I] wanted to write about… this aspect of war and its terrifying accidents.”
That she chose the years just prior to the U.S.’s involvement in WWII was crucial since we often see this war, in hindsight, as a ”just war” with clearly defined good and evil elements. Blake believes the central question of this novel is “How do you bear (in both senses of the word) the news?” How did Americans at that time bear witness to such tragedy and injustice, while enjoying a peaceful existence across the Atlantic.
However, despite such weighted and weighty questions, The Postmistress is often an enjoyable and even carefree read at times. The characters are uncomplicated in their goodness — or, in the case of the nameless Nazis — in their evil. Few characters encompass the ambivalence that humans truly grapple with daily, even in times of peace. A number of romances color the novel as well — pure, uncomplicated loves that may not have survived the mundane details of real life. As stated in a number of places, “Every story — love or war — is about looking left when we should have been looking right.” This quote informs much of the novel, from the surprise of Pearl Harbor to the every day occurrence of stepping off the curb to the Americans hesitance to join the Allies.
Blake has an eye for imagery that often hits its mark:
Large and handsome with blond frizzed hair in a good silk dress, Mrs. Cripps stood like a striped tent without an occasion, studying the scene before her
…Like a stone tossed into a flock of birds, talk startled swiftly into flight whenever the new postmaster was mentioned
…The doctor’s wife came in and out of the post office every day at four o’clock after the mail had been sorted, her chin up, her back straight, walking like daffodils waving in spring.
But in other places, the description seemed to hit a false note or become heavy handed:
She had thought she was erasing the line in her heart that said she was alone in the world. She put her hand wearily on the gate. Other people believed they were tethered to the world and didn’t imagine it could break. But she knew. The memory of her mother’s voice was as light and vague as a veil sliding off the back of a chair. All that remained of her brother was the memory of their shared bed, his breath on her cheek finding her in teh dark sometimes, just before sleep. Death was the lightest kiss, the coolest touch, a pinch on the thread and then you were gone.
…Taxicabs continued up and down the street. She sat there for ten minutes, twenty, another half hour. In the tiny garden across the way the dew-heavy crown of a daffodil slipped sideways onto the grass. Someone’s baby wailed from one of the open windows. A footstep struck hard along the pavement. One of the house doors thunked shut upon the street. The blood on her skirt dried. Finally, she stood up and made her way home.
So, in summary, I did enjoy reading The Postmistress and would recommend it to many, but I’m not convinced it will stay with me years from now — and I’m not sure if it would result in a lasting book club discussion, either.
Interested in winning a free copy? Drop me a comment below and I will choose a lucky winner by the weekend!
Monday, February 28th: The Literate Housewife Review
Tuesday, March 1st: You’ve GOTTA Read This!
Thursday, March 3rd: Amusing Reviews
Friday, March 4th: Musings of an All Purpose Monkey
Monday, March 7th: Caribousmom
Tuesday, March 8th: Red Headed Book Child
Thursday, March 10th: Book Reviews by Molly
Monday, March 14th: One Person’s Journey Through a World of Books
Tuesday, March 15th: Book Club Classics!
Wednesday, March 16th: Debbie’s Book Bag
Thursday, March 17th: In the Next Room
Monday, March 21st: Peeking Between the Pages
Thursday, March 24th: Diary of an Eccentric
Friday, March 25th: Life in Review
Monday, March 28th: Suko’s Notebook
Tuesday, March 29th: Books and Movies
Wednesday, March 30th: Stephanie’s Written Word
Sounds like a good book
Have been wanting to read this book. Have heard wonderful things on this. On my to read list.
I’ve been waiting to read this book with my book club. Would love to win it!
Love historical fiction & this sounds right up my alley!
This is definitely on my to-be-read list–I’d love to win a copy! Thanks for another tantalizing review!
I’ve also had this on my radar for a long time – please include me in the giveaway! Thanks!!
I’m very interested in reading this book. THanks for the giveaway.
I’ve put this one on my reading list, and I’d love a copy!
I’ve heard of this book on a lot of book-related blogs – would like the opportunity to read it:) Thanks, as always, for the chance to win!
~Renee
This book sounds great! I would love to win it! Thanks!
This sounds like a very interesting book. Thanks for the chance.
nancyecdavis AT bellsouth DOT net
This sounds really good! I’d love to read it! Thank you!
mittens0831 at aol dot com
I love books. I really love books that you remember years later. I know this one might not stay with you, but it might stay with me. And I’d love to have it in my collection.
This is already on my “to read” list! Please include me.
I loved reading this book so much that I selected it for my book club to read for our April 26 meeting. I would love for my book club to be able to receive copies of this! The library’s copies are already being used and there is a waiting list! Thanks.
Been wanting to read this for a while but there’s a waiting list at my library. I read, and liked, Twilight, Guernsey (twice, The Help…so think I’l like this book too.
Please consider me for this giveaway.
thanks.
Thanks for the honest review — been curious abt this one (but not urgent enough to push up on my TBR). Still, sounds like it might be a good read when I need something historical but not hard, does that make sense? Thanks so much for the giveaway.
unabridgedchick at gmail.com
Sounds like a good book! I’ll try for it!
I would love to read this book. My grandmother was a postmistress in Fort Pierre South Dakota!
My curosity is peaked, why did she sneak the envelope out instead letting the receipient read it?
CarolNWong(at)aol(dot)com
I’ve really been wanting to read The Postmistress, thanks for the giveaway!
I would love to read this book.
I listened to this one on audio but would really love to read it. Please count me in!
I would be interested in reading this book…have been eying it! Thanks for offering.
Loved your review! Sounds like my kind of book, and I’d love to read it. Please enter me. Thanks!
ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net
Count me as one who would love to read it. Thanks.
Thanks for entering me in the free giveaway! Sounds like an interesting book.
I have heard a lot about this book and yet have been apprehensive about checking it out. I thought it may read too much like a history text.
After having read the excerpts and your review, I would like to give it a try. I do enjoy vivid descriptions but agree that sometimes they can be over the top.
The Postmistress sounds like a great read!
I loved both The Help and Guernsey Society. I have had Postmistress on my wishlist for a while now! I would really love to own it. Thanks for the giveaway and the review!
You summed this novel up perfectly, Audra — historical but not hard!
What a great personal connection, Carol!! I”m afraid the mystery surrounding the letter is not as intriguing as the blurb indicates, though… Still a good read, though!
I’ve heard about this book recently, and it sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for the opportunity to try to win a copy.
sounds like a book I would enjoy