Concordian Review: The Postmistress - by Sarah Blake

This review originally appeared in the July 2011 edition of the Digital Concordian:

A few months back I read a lengthy and very good biography of FDR by H.W. Brands, titled Traitor To His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  That book gave me some insight into both the internal and external conflicts that ensnared the United States in World War 2.  For some (Roosevelt included) becoming a part of the war in Europe was an unfortunate inevitability.  For others, however, the war in Europe was something that had nothing whatsoever to do with the United States.  They felt that the country should remain rigidly neutral and do every thing in its considerable power to avoid being drawn into an unnecessary foreign entanglement.

Sarah Blake’s historical melodrama The Postmistress is a wonderful dramatization of those two conflicting mindsets.  Beginning in fall of 1940 and ending in late summer of 1941, The Postmistress tells two interlinked stories.  The primary one, despite the misdirection of the novel’s title, follows CBS radio journalist Frankie Bard.  Bard has come to London to report on the Blitz alongside Edward R. Murrow, but is compelled to investigate the mass exodus of Jews from both Germany and the Nazi occupied countries around it.  The other story is that of Postmaster (do not call her Postmistress) Iris James.  A newcomer to the small coastal town of Franklin, Massachusetts, James is given the unpleasant task of having to deliver a particular letter to the wife of the local doctor, should he happen to die while helping those suffering the horrors of the Blitz.

Bard wants everyone back home to pay attention to what is happening in Europe, while James (and the Doctor’s emotionally distraught wife) does not want to hear anything more about the conflict in Europe.  Complicating matters slightly for James is her love affair with a local mechanic named Harry Vale.  The man is not only obsessed with finding the German U-boats he believes are lurking in the local coastal waters, but he also hounds the Postmaster to have the post office’s flagpole lowered.  Vale is certain that the flagpole is high enough to be used as a landmark for the inevitable Nazi invasion of America.

The stories and characters all come together for an emotionally powerful conclusion that not only cuts through the veil of willful ignorance several of the characters have regarding the coming conflict, but that also examines the painful choices that have to be made on how to best deliver news that simply does not want to be heard.

The Postmistress is a touching and tender novel that is well worth reading.