The Postmistress: Review by Barbara

THE POSTMISTRESS a novel

by Sarah Blake

Review for Anstett Book Club:

BARBARA LECHNER

1/28/2014

While the book is titled after Iris, the postmistress of the small New England town, the character I was most drawn to was Frankie. I guess we'd all like to think we're as brave as she to report from the London Blitz and later during the war train travel through some dangerous and devastated European countries. Her radio reports back to the United States are meant to bring the American people a sense of urgency on how much their help was needed by the free world and that they were not immune.

The American people were very reluctant to be drawn into another war since they were still recovering from the first World War twenty years prior. However, as you know from your history, the Nazi's continued to march across Europe with a murderous and amoral agenda, and along with the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, we were eventually pulled into World War II.

You might notice when reading the story that things in threes seem to be important to the author's sensibility. I'm not sure why except that the triangle is symbolic to connectedness. For example, there are 3 key women, 3 men, the Axis, made up of three countries (Germany, Japan and Italy) were united by treaties in their opposition to the West and the Soviet Union. They were the threesome know as the Allies (America, England and Russia)

The story weaves the lives of three women (Iris, Emma and Frankie)... all brought together through different circumstances. The author provided enough description and individualism to make the reader really like them and want to know what happens to them during this tumultuous time. How they dealt with adversity and carried on with their lives...although all received serious personal blows.

I thought the story started out a bit slow and took me a while to get interested, but it's a very good “read”. George read it too and really liked it. We hope you will, too!

Side Note: It would have been nice to see Mom's review of this book since she was a young woman at the time this story is set.

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