Priyanka Chatterjee
Defining the genre of “chick lit” has always been murky territory. As it stands now, the stereotype involves a plucky young heroine who’s not as thin as she’d like to be, embroiled in the tangles of young urban professional life: dating, bosses from hell, martinis, and pantyhose. The Postmistress is not one of these novels. But, as it’s written by a woman (Sarah Blake), is about three women, and is recommended for book clubs that are disproportionately populated by women, one wonders what separates this book from the legions of novels classified as “chick lit.” After reading it through, it becomes clear that the appeal of the female protagonists’ travails is anything but exclusive to women.
World War II rages as the novel opens. France has fallen, London is under siege by the Luftwaffe, and America is on the precipice of entering the war. For Frankie Bard, a radio reporter stationed in the middle of a city under attack, the war is fuel for her fire. The lone female in a group of brave reporters called “Murrow’s Boys,” scattered around London, Bard’s is the voice that travels home to America, all the way to a small town in Massachusetts. Forty-year old Iris James, the town postmistress of the title, and Will and Emma Fitch, a young newlywed couple, are residents of the town. All three are convinced that war is on its way to destroy their lives, which are all only just beginning.
As Blake contrasts the relative calm before the storm in Massachusetts with the bedlam of Bard’s London, it seems inevitable that all three worlds must collide. As Frankie delivers Roosevelt’s call to war, Will leaves his new bride to work as an army doctor overseas just as Emma finds out she’s pregnant. Hoping to return in six months, he leaves his bride with nothing but a promise. As Iris sees her job turn from a town staple to the only hope of communication with a far-off conflict, she’s waiting for her own life to finally begin. She eyes the town mechanic, who waits for the war to come to the shores of Cape Cod. Before long, James intercepts a letter that will bring all three together in a most heartbreaking way.
Blake does not descend into the melodrama that typically accompanies a novel about women in peril. Instead, her strategy is to bring the conflict to a level to which contemporary readers can relate. With her stirring language and languid images, she brings a war more than a half a century old back to the forefront. In an age of digital technology, statistics and two wars that languish behind pop culture in the American consciousness, the centrality of the Second World War in the characters’ lives could seem distinct from our own experiences. But the authenticity of the dialogue and the human element in her characters transcend our psychological distance from that era.
In a word, the novel is heartbreaking. What is most impressive is Blake’s ability to bring the same tenderness and empathy to the horrors of a global catastrophe and the tragedies of a small town. In fact, Blake uses these comparisons to her advantage. It is the loss of a young boy’s mother, in a story delivered by Bard, that propels Will to abandon his young, naïve wife and join the war effort. It is Iris’ love interest, the town mechanic Harry, whose constant surveillance for U-boats in the bay leads her to want to keep bad news from the town. The letters she keeps aren’t just news stories; they change lives. Blake manages to weave suspense into the novel: the pressing question of when Emma will receive any contact from Will overshadows almost any other plot point; despite Blake’s efforts, it is Emma that becomes the central recipient of our empathy, the emotional center of the novel. James and Bard are most impressive in their dialogue and the freshness with which they jump off the page in a fairly familiar genre. Between the three of them, the novel transcends the plight of three women and the men that surround them, becoming a thrilling emotional journey that readers of any gender can relish.
