The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake
The Postmistress is a novel of women and war. At the height of the London Blitz, protagonist Frankie Bard reports with real journalist Edward G. Murrow from Broadcast House, London. In a town on Cape Cod, we also meet Emma Fitch, just married to her beloved Will, a doctor, and Iris James, the middle-aged Postmistress.
Though the U.S. is not yet at war, Harry, who is falling in love with Iris, warns her that the post office flag pole should be shortened, lest it act as a beacon to guide German U-boats in from the Atlantic. But Iris brushes the idea off.
As yet, the town has barely been touched by the war, except for the arrival of a single Jewish refugee from Austria. Because of his German accent, the townspeople treat Otto with suspicion. Meanwhile the people of Franklin listen to broadcasts from London, and soon become familiar with the voice of Frankie Bard and her eye-witness accounts of the blitz. Still, for them life remains calm.
When Maggie, the wife of a local fisherman, goes into labour with her fourth child, Dr. Fitch attends the birth. Things go unexpectedly wrong, she dies in childbirth, and the doctor blames himself. Thus the young physician falls back on an old idea that his family is cursed. Emma is unable to talk her husband out of his self-recrimination.
Unaware that his wife is pregnant, Dr. Will Fitch goes off to London as a volunteer medic to help care for the civilian wounded. Before departing, he gives Miss James, the trusted postmistress, a letter to be delivered to his wife in the event of his death. Emma writes to her husband faithfully, and the doctor writes back each day. Though he had originally planned to stay away only a short time, he keeps delaying his journey home.
One night, Will meets Frankie in a bomb shelter and they talk. After the all clear is sounded, they leave together and Dr. Fitch looks the wrong way before crossing the street. Now Frankie too has a letter to post.
But this delivery will have to wait. Frankie's boss is sending her on assignment to Berlin. She is to report on the refugees who are fleeing from German-occupied territories, trying desperately to get to Lisbon or a Spanish port in order to escape from Europe on ships.
Frankie's weeks in occupied Europe take a terrible toll. Through a series of personal encounters, she witnesses the desperation of the fleeing refugees and the random cruelty of the Nazis. She returns to London emotionally shattered. Taking passage on the first ship she finds, Frankie sails for Boston. For now, she has had enough of reporting news nobody wants to hear. She also has her letter to deliver.
The surprising denouement brings together the three women, Frankie, Iris and Emma, in a small rented cottage in Franklin, where the traumatized journalist is recover from her nightmares as she comes to terms with her moral dilemmas about her chosen profession of journalism.
Two women have letters for the third, but not all of them get delivered. This, decides the woman who holds her letter back, is because the story knows what's right, how things must end. And the story wants it this way.
Author Sarah Blake has written a profound and haunting book (Penguin 2010). When I listened to the unabridged audiobook, published by Blackstone Audio, and read by Orlagh Cassidy, it made me cry.