In her afterword to her novel, The Postmistress, author Sarah Blake discusses the inspiration for her story. She had been living on the tip of Cape Cod and often noticed the woman who delivered mail out on her route. She wondered if she ever read the postcards she delivered and how she kept those secrets to herself.
"One afternoon I had a vivid image of this woman standing in front of the sorting boxes in the back room of the post office with an envelope in her hand, I saw her standing there looking down at what she held, deciding, and then simply sliding the letter into her pocket. So Iris James, the postmistress, was born."
While the postmistress might have her secret, that's not the only story told here. Ultimately Blake is writing about truth and lies and the reality of what we see and hear; and World War II and the lives of three very different women were the perfect setting and storytellers to do it.
While the bombs are dropping in the London Blitz, life continues as usual in Franklin, Massachusetts. It's late in 1940 and there's still no talk of America joining the fray, but into these calm lives comes the voice of "radio gal" Frankie Bard. One of the few women war correspondents she has the enviable job of reporting the news, broadcasting all she hears and sees to those back home working along with Edward R. Murrow. It's her earnest desire to help rouse America to take a stand and not sit back complacently watching while so many people are enduring the horrors of war and devastation of the bombs.
In Franklin, spinster Iris James has recently arrived to take over the job as postmaster. Her bright red lipstick causes the women to question her motives, but Iris is only interested in keeping order and it's quickly decided there's nothing to worry over. She's a conscientious worker and efficient in all her tasks, which makes it all the more surprising when later in the story she sets aside a letter rather than delivering it. Emma Fitch is another newcomer to Franklin having just married the town's doctor. Utterly alone in the world Emma wants stability. She's only too willing to shut off the radio and keep the world and it's dangers far away. When one of Dr. Fitch's patients dies he decides to go to London and lend his skills to those who really need them, which is crushing to Emma, but it's as if he needs to set to right something that went wrong in his life.
When Murrow offers Frankie the plum assignment of going into Occupied France and on to Germany to tell the story of the Jewish refugees, something she's been so desperate to tell but a story that's not been deemed important, she packs immediately and sets off taking with her a device to record voices. News may be facts, but what Frankie sees and wants to tell the world are the stories of the people and the injustices done to them.
"And what had Frankie thought? That she'd get over here and find the single story that would make the world sit up and listen? These are the Jews of Europe. Here is what is happening. Pay attention. But there was no story. Or rather, she turned from the window and considered the portable recorder. There was no story over here that she could tell from beginning to end. The story of the Jews lay in the edges around what could be told."
Frankie is plunged into a world of chaos and disorder. So many people are trying to get out, but so few trains are carrying passengers. Her journey is a harrowing one, and the story she was sent to tell is not the one she finds. Everyone feels a dizzying sense of dislocation and Frankie gets only a momentary glimpse into these lives. Her story isn't of just one of those voices but of many. Whatever feelings she had that she could provoke some kind of change in attitude are quickly diminished by her own missteps and misunderstandings. And this is a theme that runs through the story and will tie the threads together.
Whatever optimism Frankie came into France with is defeated by the time she leaves, so she returns home to America. She carries with her another letter to be delivered, one she will take back to Franklin and the doctor's wife. A chance meeting between Frankie and Will Fitch in a London bomb shelter before she traveled into Europe means she has reason to travel to Cape Cod and bring the story full circle.
Although this was in many ways a compelling read, it's one I have mixed feelings about. Sarah Blake sets herself a difficult task with the construction of this story. Although the different threads do twine together not all the stories felt equally told. Frankie's stands out against the rest and perhaps that was intentional as she seems to be the lens through which everyone and their actions are seen. I felt her character had more depth and breadth than the others in the story. Still, there's much to admire about it, too. She's a very good writer, even if it's a bit uneven in the way the story is told. I liked the way she portrayed the disarray of London and the rest of Europe juxtaposing it with the calm indifference of life in America, the reader being aware that the U.S.'s entrance into the war is only months away. It's a different angle she tells her story from as well--the American homefront viewing the war from the perspectives of war correspondents broadcasting live. She throws a lot of ideas out at the reader, and now I wish I had taken notes as I was going. I'd be very curious to hear what others think of The Postmistress. I'm glad I read it, though it's one that I seem to appreciate more after the fact than during.