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Loading... The Postmistressby Sarah Blake
I started this one quite awhile ago, followed my bad habit of skipping to the end to find out how things are resolved and decided I didn't want to read it through. But upon retrying it I quite liked it. This one would be interesting to journalists I would think and to those in the health professions-- how do you maintain your emotional distance in order to do your job, and what happens when you can't? Horrible stories of the second world war, but a lot of insight into how people deal with difficult situations, find their true calling, interact and make decisions. Good characters. (  ) ehousewright | May 10, 2013 |  Interlocking story of 3 female characters: a journalist reporting from the London Blitz & on Jewish refugees in Europe, a postmistress & a doctor's wife. All their stories eventually come together although this feels forced. However some excellent writing & excellent description of the Blitz & the horror of Nazi occupation in Europe. A bit too syrupy in places when it comes to relationships but still worth a read. (  ) sianpr | May 7, 2013 | A good read; not too heavy but with enough substance to hold its own. I think it should be called The Journalist, however, because it's really Frankie's story, not Iris' story that is told. Or maybe it's Emma's story. Either way, I think it is misdirection to pose this book as a look at what might happen if a letter is not delivered. That implies a different sort of interference than choosing how or why or what news to deliver, which is really what the book is about. When you see a horror but know no one can really do anything, even if they are able to understand what they see, what does that mean? That most of the book takes place in a quaint New England town contrasts well to the bombing in London, and does a good job of juxtaposing the Here and There faces of war. A good book for book clubs or high school ISUs. (Also a good section on what makes a story). ( ) LDVoorberg | Apr 7, 2013 | I was not as excited about this book as I had hoped from the hype. I was more engaged with the story of Frankie the female war correspondent than I was with either Iris the postmistress or Emma the mousey wife of the local doctor. I liked the second half of the book better and found much thought-provoking/book discussion matter there. (  ) lindap69 | Apr 5, 2013 | The Postmistress is a novel of if. "If I tell this story in exactly the right way, people will hear it and act on it," thinks the reporter. "If I don't make mistakes, the system will be perfect and chaos and random chance will be kept at bay," thinks the postmistress. "If I think hard enough about my husband being safe, he will be," thinks the woman left at home as her husband goes off to London during the Blitz. But if is a double-edged word and sometimes it falls the other way, and we're left thinking, "If only I had done this or hadn't done that, then this other thing would never have happened." Beautiful. I opened this novel, already in love with the cover, and fell in love with the writing contained within. It's not a beauty that keeps you at arm's distance. It's a beauty that seductively whispers, "Come closer. Read what I have to say. See what I'm showing you." And then it shows you the chaos of war, and how helpless we are before it. It shows you how it's human nature to avoid seeing what we don't want to see, or to avoid acting when it's easier to stay safely at home with our heads in the sand. Haunting. I am going to be haunted by Frankie's story for a long time. I should perhaps relate more to the wife than the reporter, but Frankie's stories have left a mark on my soul. She's in London, and then she's in Europe in the refugee trains, and all the time she is beating against the world's indifference, shouting, "This is happening, and it's happening in numbers you can't imagine. And it's getting worse every day. Pay attention! Please, just pay attention." And the world doesn't pay attention, and the horror worsens. Read it. It's not always easy; war stories never are. But we still have a duty to pay attention, even--or perhaps especially--to the past. (  )1  JG_IntrovertedReader | Apr 3, 2013 |
 Sarah Blake has coaxed forth a book that hits hard and pushes buttons expertly. Not for nothing does its publisher emphasize the resemblance between “The Postmistress” and “The Help,” Kathryn Stockett’s socially conscious pulp best seller. Each of these novels appropriates galvanizing social issues in the service of a well-wrought tear-jerker.
References to this work on external resources.
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In London covering the Blitz with Edward R. Murrow, Frankie Bard meets a Cape Cod doctor in a shelter and promises that she'll deliver a letter for him when she finally returns to the United States. Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, "The Postmistress" is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women--and of two countries torn apart by war.… (more)
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