Book Review: The Postmistress

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

I chose this book, at first drawn by the beautiful cover - the old tattered letters, the beautiful dried rose. Then on further inspection I read this recommendation: "A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I'm telling everyone I know to read." - Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help. Having just finished (and loved) The Help, I took this recommendation very seriously.

The Postmistress is about 3 women whose lives come together in the fate of a letter, the postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts is Iris James, in the same little Cape Cod town is Emma Fitch the doctor's wife, and then reporting from London is Frankie Bard, a journalist delivering daily broadcasts over the radio on the war in Europe.

It is 1940, the war overseas is raging but the US is not yet involved, still detached, just listening to the daily radio reports. Frankie Bard was in London reporting for Edward R. Murrow, and she begged Mr. Murrow to send her into Europe, where the action was, where the Jews were being persecuted, to get to the heart of the story - "so that she can take down the stories because she wants to put the patchwork quilt together and show America that in fact there is something going on."

I liked the quilt metaphor and thought that like a quilt there are many threads that bind these different people together, Iris and Emma feel connected to Frankie through her daily radio broadcasts, Emma is connected to Iris the postmistress through her daily letters to her husband, and the ultimate thread of fate brings these three women together.

The pieces of this patchwork quilt are the many letters that pass through the hands of the postmistress, the people of the small town, the desperate voices of the refugees recorded by Frankie on location in Europe, the love stories between Iris and Harry, Will and Emma.

These pieces and threads are all woven into this quilt story, the smaller pieces would be filler around the prominent central story lines - the 3 women and the 3 key letters, and all sewn onto a background of underlying fear and danger of war.

An interview with the author reveals the story behind The Postmistress:

"A long time ago I had a picture in my head, I was living in Cape Cod and I was wondering how much the woman who kept charge of the Post Office, how much she knew about us and what did she hide and what did she keep and into my head came the image of a woman in a Post Office looking at a letter and slipping it into her pocket."~Sarah Blake

This book was read as part of an online bookclub, Book Buddies, created by Bonnie Jacobs. (I met Bonnie - a writer, blogger, pastor, bookstore owner, college professor, and more - while in her beautiful hometown of Chattanooga.) This bookclub discussion has made me appreciate the book much more than when I first read it, I enjoy the process of dissection and learning and appreciating the book. The book is intriguing, the characters are real and compelling. A very good read.

Book Review: The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Unbidden images of Gone With the Wind popped into my head and played out when I first started reading the stories of Aibileen and the other black maids, until I discovered that some of those same maids were college educated and reading classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and even some Freud. I had to stop and think, this story is in fact based in 1962, almost a hundred years since the slaves were set free. So what has happened in 100 years? According to this story, subservient slave labor is alive and well, except that these black women are employees instead of property.

The book spans the time from 1962-1964 in Jackson, Mississippi, the civil rights movement is rumbling. Almost everything is still segregated, except for the bus, "We sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks." In the background of the story, Mississippi is featured in Life magazine twice in two months for its racial unrest, Martin Luther King is planning his big march on Washington, and President Kennedy is shot. But in the foreground are the black maids and their stories, the everyday life of these women is fascinating reading, the things they had to endure, the joys and hardships. You can tell yourself this is a fiction book, but you know deep down that these things really did happen, a sad and shameful time in our Southern history.

I really enjoyed this book, it is funny and sad and serious and suspenseful and totally believable. As I am sure the author intended, I found myself rooting for the maids and abhorring their white bosses. For such an oppressing topic, it was a thoroughly great read.

power reading

House Rules by Jodi Picoult - I read a review on this one when it came out back in March. It is about a teenage boy with Asperger's syndrome. He is facinated by and apparently has a knack for forensic analysis, he shows up at crime scenes and tells the police what they need to do...and he's usually right.

I had heard of Asperger's syndrome only recently on the television show Parenthood and I wanted to read more about it, and a crime novel seemed like a good way to do that.

I made a mental note to check it out at the library and added it to my To Be Read list on LibraryThing.

Shortly after that, Bonnie of Bonnie's Books announced that her online book club was planning on reading House Rules and discuss it online. Having never done anything like this before, I decided that sounded like fun, so I put my name on the long waiting list at the library. I figured it would take about a year and the online book discussion would be history, but as anyone who knows me - knows I am too cheap to go out and buy a book!

The good news is the local library called to tell me the book was ready for me.

The bad news is I am now halfway through the 1074 PAGE Under the Dome by Stephen King.

The good news is that I am HALFWAY through the 1074 page Under the Dome by Stephen King.

So with this long holiday weekend ahead I can make my way closer to the end of the King novel, and hopefully start soon on House Rules.

The pressure is on, hey - I thought this reading thing was supposed to be relaxing! Wish me luck. And, Bonnie, what about better late than never?