The Postmistress [Paperback]

My initial impression (from the cover and back page blurb) was "eugh, romance, not in the mood". Then one day I picked it up, read the prologue, and just didn't stop. This is beautifully written, intimate, heart-breaking, and so very human. Reading it creates an almost painful happiness; there is an honesty to the story that carries you through even the most painful tragedies, and makes you want to reread each line so that you too can bear witness to the bravery, keep those characters alive one moment longer.

PLOT: The story is set during World War II. It follows three women whose paths cross due to unexpected circumstances: Iris, a postmistress in Franklin MA; Emma, wife of Franklin's sole doctor; and Frankie, a radio gal reporting from war-torn London. The war touches all of their lives in very distinct ways, but just as it is not a romance, this is not a war novel, either. What matters is the people: their stories, their choices, and their mistakes.

THOUGHTS:
Where to begin with my no doubt senseless gushing?

Sometimes when you read a book you become one with the main character, and you feel like you can stand between them and their destiny, or at least help them in their plight. Not so with The Postmistress. Here you stand alongside the story, and as much as you ache for the characters all you can do is watch and bear witness to their struggles.

This may explain why something that would generally annoy me -- the point of view sliding between characters -- did not bother me at all. Not only was it smoothly done, but it felt right to be able to know each character intimately. After all, this is not some murder-mystery with plot twists to conceal; this is real. Every person counts. Pay attention.

I'll admit, it's not an easy read. The parts that really hit me the most were Frankie's -- reading about London being blitzed, people hiding in tube stations, people dying.... The young boy who goes home and finds his house gone, only the front door standing.... Then Frankie travels throughout Europe, on the refugee trains, seeking for the truth and just trying to get the news out to America, to tell people to pay attention, but no one does. It made me cry.

Which brings me to the writing. You know when you read a paragraph that's so right but you can't pinpoint why, and you just have to re-read it a couple times to savour it? That's how I felt reading this book. I think it's the small details; Blake captures the little things in life that matter without us realizing they do. And on the second read it has only gotten better as I'm noticing the interwoven subtleties. I want to write like this. I want my words to have this effect on someone, someday.

Even the ending, which so often disappoints me in a novel, is somehow right. I really cannot think of anything to improve on. It's gripping, enthralling, emotional, insightful, and best of all the characters are real people. There are no heroic knights or distressed damsels. There are only people -- people like you and me -- living through very difficult times.

In sum, this is not the kind of book I thought I would like, but I am so very happy that on that day I looked left instead of right and got a copy, because it's the best book I've read in a long, long time.

I loved this book. It was bought on a whim but proved to be an enlightening read. I knew nothing about the America journalists who were reporting the war and I like every book to give me an insight into something new to me. The story is simply written but the author has the ability to take you into situations and allow you to have a clear picture in your head. She also left some situations unresolved so you could try to put your own ending to the individual stories.

This sounded so full of promise - the early years of WWII from an American perspective and, according to the blurb, "...an unforgettable story of three women: their loves, their partings and the secrets that they must bear, or bury." Sadly, for me, it didn't live up to expectations.

The paperback edition to which this review refers is exquisitely presented and I can understand why one reviewer bought it for the cover alone. It also has moments of stunningly beautiful writing, but none of this made up for the lack of empathy I felt with the main characters. Of the three women, only Frankie Bard, an American reporter who sent despatches from London and occupied France during the blitz, felt like a real person, someone I could get to know and whose feelings I might understand. The other two, Iris James, the eponymous postmistress, and Emma, the doctor's wife, seemed two-dimensional, more like cardboard cutouts than real people. In the end I didn't particularly care what happened to either of them. To say more would give away too much to those who might yet read the book.

What really annoyed me though and spoilt the rest of the book for me began with a passage on page 11. After the opening lines of Yeats's `The Lake Isle of Innisfree', the sentence that follows, `Bombers flew above the wattles, over an England filled with the songs of linnets and thrush', sits ill. With so many English poems the author could have chosen, why choose one so eminently Irish? Having passed this niggle I nearly abandoned the book in disgust when I read on page 25 of `...antiaircraft fire over the chimney pots and the distant medieval spires of Westminster Abbey. Spires? On Westminster Abbey? In any event, although their bases date from the 15th century, the distinctive twin towers weren't added until some 300 years later, during the 18th century - hardly medieval.

Another problem is the changing viewpoints within a chapter. Just as you become absorbed in one character, the next paragraph shifts you to someone else's thoughts, which I always find disorienting.

Judging by most of the earlier reviews, though, other readers are more forgiving. And maybe it's just me, but some of the conversations between characters seemed abstruse, so that I found myself wondering if these were the sorts of things real people would say to each other.

There is little doubt that Sarah Blake can write. The idea for the story and the way the three women's lives eventually mingle certainly have five-star potential, and once you read beyond what are, in my view, serious howlers, the story becomes more engaging, mainly because Frankie's experiences of the blitz are compelling. It's enjoyable enough, but it misses out because the characters never really come alive.