From the Stacks - Mary Emrick


The Postmistress
by Sarah Blake

 

  The most wonderful occurrence happens from time to time at the bookstore. We receive occasional gifts of books to read prior to the titles being available for retail sale. These “Advance Readers’ Copies” are referred to as ARCs in the book industry and are treasured by all booksellers. My staff and I look forward to these “gifts” from sales reps and publishers. This distribution of ARCs to shops like mine is a way for publishers to promote their books to bookstores in anticipation that we will like the books and sell them in our stores. ARCs act as a tool for booksellers enabling us to talk about the books and to build an interest in the books with our customers. More time than not, we begin an ARC only to quickly discard it in hopes of finding the one we “can’t put down.” Recently, I was rewarded with one of the “can’t put down” ARCs, a debut novel by Sarah Blake, The Postmistress, published by Amy Einhorn Books of Putnam Publishing Group. This book became available for sale in February.
   Sarah Blake introduced me to the war in Europe through the eyes of Frankie Bard, an American radio correspondent known on the air as the Radio Gal. Bard worked with Edward R. Murrow in an effort to bring the ravages of early World War II into the homes of complacent, uninformed Americans. The Radio Gal’s initial assignment was the London Blitz of 1941. Bard hoped to change the American attitude of inaction to one of action. She reported with passion and clarity of the terror, destruction, and death the Nazi’s were inflicting on London.
   For most of the citizens in Franklin, a small Cape Cod town of Massachusetts, life is not affected by the war. Draft numbers have been assigned, and aluminum collections are being organized, but for most people life goes on untouched by affairs overseas. Iris James the new postmistress and Emma Fitch the new wife of Franklin’s young doctor are both new to town. The two women become avid followers of the Radio Gal’s reports to America from across the Atlantic. Sarah Blake manages to blend the three women’s stories into one unforgettable tale of lost innocence, lost love, and lost lives.
   Of The Postmistress, Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, says, “Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages. The Postmistress is one of those rare books. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. The Postmistress made me homesick for a time before I was even born. What’s remarkable, however, is how relevant the story is to our present-day times. A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I’m telling everyone I know to read.”
   Sarah Blake lives in Washington, D. C., with her husband, the poet Josh Weiner, and their two sons.