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The Postmistress Delivers Potent Moral Message
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CAROL MEMMOTT USA TODAY
REVIEW The Postmistress By Sarah Blake (Putnam $25.95, 336 pages |
These days, handwritten letters are a dying art form. But they are the primary means of communication during the Second World War era in which Sarah Blake sets her splendid novel about the power of words to change people and the world. The Postmistress possesses the sentimental quaintness of the 2008 hit The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but its spark comes from its enduring message about the need for humanity to step up and fight anyone and anything that threatens our fragile moral code. There are actually two keepers of letters in this novel: Iris James, the postmistress of the tiny Cape Cod town of Franklin, Mass., and Frankie Bard, an American radio journalist covering the London blitz with the iconic Edward R. Murrow. Both women hold letters destined to break the heart of Emma Fitch, the newlywed wife of Franklin's Dr. Will Fitch who, in an attempt to redeem himself over the death of a young mother in Franklin, heads to London to help care for its wounded citizenry. Meanwhile, life for everyone in Franklin and the rest of America goes on as usual — even as Europe's Jews are forced from their homes and their homelands and Nazi Germany begins its plans to exterminate an entire population. Life is anything but normal in London, where the bombings spark Frankie's growing awareness of what's happening to Europe's Jews. Hauling around a 3o-pound recording device and her rabid determination, she travels to Europe and rides the trains with Jewish refugees trying to flee the Nazis. She captures their stories — and more importantly their humanity — in an effort to reveal their plight to the world. In contrast, she and Iris hold on to the letters meant for Emma Fitch. Will there ever be a right time to release them? What will the fallout be? In 2010, The Postmistress may stand alone, as did Kathryn Stockett's The Help in 2009, as a refreshingly honest novel about how a handful of people can help change the world.
From the Calgary Herald Sunday February 14, 2010 Page D5 – Books In Review |
