The Postmistress
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4.0 • 496 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Experience World War 2 through the eyes of two very different women in this captivating New York Times bestseller by the author of The Guest Book.
“A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel.”—Kathryn Stockett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Help
In 1940, Iris James is the postmistress in coastal Franklin, Massachusetts. Iris knows more about the townspeople than she will ever say, and 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.
Meanwhile, Frankie Bard broadcasts from overseas with Edward R. Murrow. Her dispatches beg listeners to pay heed as the Nazis bomb London nightly. Most of the townspeople of Franklin think the war can't touch them. But both Iris and Frankie know better...
The Postmistress is a tale of two worlds-one shattered by violence, the other willfully naïve—and of two women whose job is to deliver the news, yet who find themselves unable to do so. Through their eyes, and the eyes of everyday people caught in history's tide, it examines how stories are told, and how the fact of war is borne even through everyday life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Weaving together the stories of three very different women loosely tied to each other, debut novelist Blake takes readers back and forth between small town America and war-torn Europe in 1940. Single, 40-year-old postmistress Iris James and young newlywed Emma Trask are both new arrivals to Franklin, Mass., on Cape Cod. While Iris and Emma go about their daily lives, they follow American reporter Frankie Bard on the radio as she delivers powerful and personal accounts from the London Blitz and elsewhere in Europe. While Trask waits for the return of her husband a volunteer doctor stationed in England James comes across a letter with valuable information that she chooses to hide. Blake captures two different worlds a na ve nation in denial and, across the ocean, a continent wracked with terror with a deft sense of character and plot, and a perfect willingness to take on big, complex questions, such as the merits of truth and truth-telling in wartime.
Customer Reviews
A wonderful story
As relevant today as 70 years ago. People, the worlds we live in, and the loves/fears, hopes/hatreds.....only the tools are more advanced.
The Postmistress
This is one of my favorite picks, a book I will tell everyone about. It is highly recommended by Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, and I could not put it down. Sarah Blake's writing style will take you back to the 1940's in a way that will make you feel that you are there during the remarkable days before the US became embroiled in the European conflict. I look forward to Blake's next book!
Outstanding
Haunting and well-written, a masterful weaving of lives and stories. At once sharply focused and blurred along the edges.