INTRODUCING OUR BOOK OF THE MONTH FOR OCTOBER - THE POSTMISTRESS BY SARAH BLAKE





Synopsis

It is 1940, and bombs fall nightly on London.

In the thick of the chaos is young American radio reporter Frankie Bard. She huddles close to terrified strangers in underground shelters, and later broadcasts stories about survivors in rubble-strewn streets. But for her listeners, the war is far from home.

Listening to Frankie are Iris James, a Cape Cod postmistress, and Emma Fitch, a doctor's wife. Iris hears the winds stirring and knows that soon the letters she delivers will bear messages of hope or tragedy. Emma is desperate for news of London, where her husband is working - she counts the days until his return.

But one night in London the fates of all three women entwine when Frankie finds a letter - a letter she vows to deliver . . .



Product Details

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Berkley Trade; Reprint edition (February 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0425238695
ISBN-13: 978-0425238691



Author Website







BOOK IS NOW OPEN FOR DISCUSSION 26TH OCTOBER

SPOILERS WILL APPLY

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS


The Postmistress is a tale of three unforgettable women, of lost innocence, of what happens to love when those we cherish leave us. It examines how we tell each other stories—how we bear the fact that that war is going on at the same time as ordinary lives continue -



Much of The Postmistress is centered on Frankie’s radio broadcasts—either Frankie broadcasting them, or the other characters listening to them. How do you think the experience of listening to the news via radio in the 1940s differs from our experience of getting news from the television or the internet?

Seek Truth. Report it. Minimize Harm. That is the journalist’s code. And it haunts Frankie during the book. Why wasn’t Frankie able to deliver the letter or tell Emma about meeting Will? For someone whose job was to deliver the news, did she fail?

Why do you think Maggie’s death compels Will to leave for England?

“Get in. Get the story. Get out.” That is Murrow’s charge to Frankie. Does The Postmistress make youquestion whether it’s possible to ever really get the whole story?

After Thomas tells his story of escape, the old woman in the train compartment says “There was God looking out for you at every turn.” Thomas disagrees. “People looked out. Not God.” He adds, “There is no God. Only us.”

How doesThe Postmistress raise the questions of faith in wartime? How does this connect to the decisions Iris and Frankie make with regard to Emma?

In the funk hole, Will says that “everything adds up”, but Frankie disagrees, saying that life is a series of “random, incomprehensible accidents”. Which philosophy do you believe? Which theory does The Postmistress make a better case for?

When Thomas is killed, Frankie imagines his parents sitting miles away, not knowing what has happened to their son and realizes there is no way for her to tell them. Today it is rare that news can’t be delivered. In this age of news 24/7, are we better off?

If you were Iris, would you have delivered the letter? Why or why not? Was she wrong not to deliver it? What good, if any, grew up in the gap of time Emma didn’t know the news? What was taken from Emma in not knowing immediately what happened?

The novel deals with the last summer of innocence for the United States before it was drawn into WWII and before the United States was attacked. Do you see any modern-day parallels? And if so, what?

When Frankie returns to America, she finds it impossible to grasp that people are calmly going about their lives while war rages in Europe. What part does complacency play in The Postmistress?



Please don't feel that you have to answer any or all of the questions - your opinion is what matters most.
Look forward to reading your thoughts on this book

***Book is now open for discussion.....Spoilers will apply ***



Here are my thoughts...



The Postmistress is a tale of three unforgettable women, of lost innocence, of what happens to love when those we cherish leave us. It examines how we tell each other stories—how we bear the fact that that war is going on at the same time as ordinary lives continue -


Much of The Postmistress is centered on Frankie’s radio broadcasts—either Frankie broadcasting them, or the other characters listening to them. How do you think the experience of listening to the news via radio in the 1940s differs from our experience of getting news from the television or the internet?
I remember my mother telling me how they would, as a family, gather around the radio for news of the war. As the newspapers were heavily censored I suppose the radio was the only way to get up to date information. Unlike today when we have 24/7 news and pictures beamed round the world as the events happen

Seek Truth. Report it. Minimize Harm. That is the journalist’s code. And it haunts Frankie during the book. Why wasn’t Frankie able to deliver the letter or tell Emma about meeting Will? For someone whose job was to deliver the news, did she fail?
I think she had seen so much hurt and destruction that by the time it came for her to deliver the letter to Emma she just couldn't add to her distress, and yet in some ways I wanted her to deliver the letter and tell her about the short time she spent with Will in the underground shelter.

Why do you think Maggie’s death compels Will to leave for England?
He felt guilty and so needed to atone for his mistake and helping the bomb victims in London was his reparation...

“Get in. Get the story. Get out.” That is Murrow’s charge to Frankie. Does The Postmistress make you question whether it’s possible to ever really get the whole story?
I'd like to think that journalists try and get the whole story but invariably they set their own agenda and so put their own personal slant on the news

After Thomas tells his story of escape, the old woman in the train compartment says “There was God looking out for you at every turn.” Thomas disagrees. “People looked out. Not God.” He adds, “There is no God. Only us.”
How doesThe Postmistress raise the questions of faith in wartime? How does this connect to the decisions Iris and Frankie make with regard to Emma?
I'm sure the experience of war makes people question their faith and belief in a righteous God. I'm not sure that God was looking out for Thomas - his death was tragic and unspeakably cruel, and in the end as victims of war "There was no God"

In the funk hole, Will says that “everything adds up”, but Frankie disagrees, saying that life is a series of “random, incomprehensible accidents”. Which philosophy do you believe? Which theory does The Postmistress make a better case for?
I'd like to think that in the end everything adds up and I guess Will was thinking of his guilt at leaving Emma, his atonement for the death of Maggie, and the very real possibility that he wouldn't ever get back home. In a way he was playing Russian roulette with his life - I find that unforgivable.I would have respected him more if he had stayed on the Cape and made his atonement with his own community.


When Thomas is killed, Frankie imagines his parents sitting miles away, not knowing what has happened to their son and realizes there is no way for her to tell them. Today it is rare that news can’t be delivered. In this age of news 24/7, are we better off?
I'm not sure that 24/7 news is better off - but we are more transparent these days and as such demand more information


If you were Iris, would you have delivered the letter? Why or why not? Was she wrong not to deliver it? What good, if any, grew up in the gap of time Emma didn’t know the news? What was taken from Emma in not knowing immediately what happened?
Personally, I think Iris was wrong to withhold the letter from Will's landlady - I think in taking such a paternalistic approach she demeaned Emma's ability to cope with whatever was revealed- Emma was stronger that they realised

The novel deals with the last summer of innocence for the United States before it was drawn into WWII and before the United States was attacked. Do you see any modern-day parallels? And if so, what?
This is a difficult one as War is certainly an ever present threat - think 9/11 and the fear of terrorism that we all live with on a regular basis.
When, in 1940 war was raging in Europe, it was only months away from the attack on Pearl Harbour which brought the conflict closer to home for the US. When war is on your own doorstep I guess you have a different perspective...


When Frankie returns to America, she finds it impossible to grasp that people are calmly going about their lives while war rages in Europe. What part does complacency play in The Postmistress?
Frankie's radio broadcast brought the war into their homes, and yet Europe was so distant, naturally the folk at Cape Cod thought it was so far away it couldn't matter to them - but in the end it did.

We read and discussed this book in my RL book group pretty much exactly a year ago. I haven't reread it, so the details are kind of fuzzy, but reading the questions and your responses helped a lot.

I think the complacency and distance from events in other places definitely continues today. Life goes on as usual here - for the most part, but not entirely - despite what's been going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, parts of Africa, etc.

One of the things I remember noting at the time we discussed the book was that the title is The Postmistress, but Iris is adamant that she is the "postmaster". I thought making the title of the book a term that the character referred to disliked was an interesting choice. The group as a whole felt that The Postmistress was a more appealing title than The Postmaster would have been.

And, I remember the interesting historical note about how close uboats really got to the east coast even if things didn't happen quite as they did at the end of the book. That wasn't something I had been aware of before. I learn a lot of real history through reading fiction.

I've spent a lot of summers going to Cape Cod so that when I read this book, I could understand the mentality of the people that live there. It's a very insulated community and they don't even connect with what is happening in Boston which is 45 minutes away let alone Europe.

I was angry at Will for dumping Emma all by herself after getting married, having no family to surround her with, and very few friends, no matter the motivation that he had for going to Europe. And then, Frankie holds onto Will's letter to her, and Iris holds back from her. What gave all of these people the right to make decisions for her or withhold information that she needed to make decisions in her life.

The one thing that I did love about this book was the strong roles that women were given and it shows the beginning of feminism in Western culture. Here we have our journalist going into dangerous territory, the postmistress controlling information, and even Emma learning to live on her own and become self-sufficient.