The Postmistress

Title: The Postmistress
Author: Sarah Blake
Publisher: Berkley Trade
ISBN: 0425238695
Pages: 384

Over a year ago, NPR's All Things Considered had an interesting feature on Sarah Blake's novel, The Postmistress.  It sounded like an interesting historical fiction book - an intertwining of three women's lives through the mail and radio - the intrusion of modern communication on every day lives.   From the NPR story, I was interested in learning more about Frankie, a female American reporter living on the bombings of London and learning how to be a war correspondent from Edward R. Murrow, one of the few "real" people in this novel.  After recommending it to my mother-in-law, who bought it at a flea market and gave it to me after she finished it, I settled in for what I expected to be a gripping read.  The intertwining of stories was interesting, but the only character I really cared about was Frankie.  However, the chapters alternated between telling the story of Frankie; Iris an uptight, single, emancipated postmaster (mistress in England); and Emma a timid, un-emancipated new wife of a small town doctor. 

The story begins with a modern time Frankie titillating a cocktail party with the story of an undelivered letter. What would be the fate? Not knowing what the letter entailed.  Then the story dissolves back to WWII.  Both Emma and Iris hear Frankie's broadcasts from London.  With Murrow's tutelage, Frankie finds the voices of the streets to help the world hear and feel the war - especially a hesitant America that doesn't want to involve itself in the war "over there".  Frankie brings the names and lives of Londoners trying to survive the constant shelling, waiting, hiding and dying.  Iris, the postmistress of the small coastal town of Franklin, MA, is determined to keep order in the town through her meticulous handling of the mail.  However, the feeling that "something is coming" fills everyone.  Doctor Fitch gets his new wife Emma, an early orphan of the flu pandemic of WWI, and begins to settle into a blissful family life.  However, Frankie's constant stories of the war unsettle Dr. Fitch and his wife, and when a patient dies under his supervision, Dr. Fitch looks for redemption by volunteering as a doctor in London, leaving a pregnant Emma behind.  Like Penelope waiting for Odysseus, Emma writes and waits for him to come home.  Iris becomes involved with a local man who is convinced that the Germans will arrive in U-Boats to invade America.  She does not want her orderly life upset, so she tends to ignore both him and the reports from Europe about the severity of the war.

Frankie is in the thick of it, as she takes shelter with the rest of London underground during the bombs, but find the reality of war is told in the daily things - the suddenly missing traffic cop, the apartment building that is half blown ahead while the other half is in perfect order.  She meets Dr. Fitch one night in the shelter, where they each poke at the other's emotional soft spots.  When Dr. Fitch leaves the shelter, he is hit and killed by a taxi cab.  Frankie takes his last letter to Emma, intending to mail it, but without ID, his body is not identified and no notice is given to Emma about his death.  Her reporter flatmate is concerned with the plight of the Jewish refuges across Europe, and when she is killed, Frankie takes up the cause.  Murrow sends her into the heart of Europe to ride the trains and record the voices of the travelers(which the author admits is historically inaccurate).  What Frankie finds is chaos, death and displacement with very little hope.  She returns with several recordings of people's hopes and fears, but doesn't know what to do with them.  Murrow sends her back to the States to recuperate.

Still having the last letter in her possession, Frankie decides to give it, in person, to Emma.  However, the small town-ness envelopes her and when she realizes the Emma doesn't know her husband is dead, she refuses to hand it over.  At the same time, Iris had been hiding the initial letter from Dr. Fitch's colleagues in London saying he was missing.   When the final notice is given, Emma is surrounded by people who will take care of her, including Iris, Frankie and Otto (an Austrian Jewish man hoping for word from his wife in Europe).  That same night, Iris's lover's nightmare/prediction comes true, as a U-Boat shows up and kills him, yet with early warming, the coast is safe.

I was anticipating a really engrossing read, but I can't see this met my expectations.  The NPR pre-view sounded really good, but it felt more like getting stuck with flat soda at a movie that was so boring I noticed how much my butt went numb.  Since the character of Frankie was supposedly based on Martha Gellhorn, I think I will do some more reading about her!

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Author: Stieg Larsson

Publisher: Knopf

ISBN: 978-0307269997

Pages: 576

I mentioned to a friend the other day that I was reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest and she said, "I don't think I'm going to read those books. I heard that they are violent crime books that lean toward pornography." I hate to admit it, but that description is fairly accurate. This is the third book in the series of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (I also have to admit that I mistakenly picked up and read book 3 before book 2. Oops!) I'm generally not a crime book type person, though I did enjoy several V. I. Warshawski novels, mostly because of the Kathleen Turner movie of the same name. However, "everyone" was reading the Girl with Tattoo series a few years ago, my father-in-law gave me the books, and then the American movie came out. BTW - glad I read the book before the movie - like is often the case, the book was better than the movie, but the movie was good if you hadn't read the book (according to my husband).

The title is very appropriate for the book, which I especially love! The metaphor of Salander stirring up the hornets in the secret government conspiracy is absolutely spot on. The story begins with Salander being carted off to the hospital after being shot in the head. Blomkvist "rescued" her from almost certain death, but then has to deal with backwoods cops who think he had something to do with not only Salander's injuries, but the murders and assaults of several other people. Disentangling the 30 year conspiracy and clearing Salander's name becomes Blomkvist's mission. It begins with Salander's father, as ex-Russian spy who defected to Sweden and concealed for his valuable information - even though he abused Salander's mother mercilessly. As a teenager, Salander took revenge by throwing a Molotov cocktail, but rather than killing him, it resulted in Salander being committed to a mental institution and abused by a twisted psychiatrist, which was alluded to in the first book. Since the government didn't want people looking into the incident, "The Section" continued to hide and cover-up the unpleasantness. I now realize that there was a whole lot of stuff that happened in book 2 that I missed, like the murders of some of Blomkvist and Salander's allies, which led to Salander tracking down her demonic father and half-brother, which resulted it her current situation of a bullet in her head.

While Salander is operated on and recovering in the hospital, the conspiracy begins to unravel. Salander's father is murdered by The Section to prevent further confessions, but this leads to more people suspecting illegal and unconstitutional dealings deep within the government. Blomkvist continues to get help from his part-time lover Berger (editor of his magazine) who transfers to a rival newspaper. She is involved in petty office politics and a stalker/harasser, which had no bearing on the central plot, other than to make Berger edgy. Blomkvist makes a deal with another secret group within the government to investigate The Section, and through this, finds several more allies - including a new lover, a fitness fanatic security guard.

One of the most interesting character, which isn't developed fully, is Blomkvist's lawyer sister, Giannini, who agrees to represent Salander, even though Giannini's specialty is civil cases. However, it turns out that Giannini's background in psychology is useful, as is her background in abuse cases.

Even though Blomkvist and Salander don't meet again until the last few chapters, they have an ongoing conversation via chat. Even though Salander is under hospital arrest without visitor, Blomkvist manages to smuggle her a PalmPilot (Hee-hee, modern readers would not have a clue what this is - but I had one!) and she "taps" out to her hacking group for help in the investigation.

Having read the first book, I realized that Larsson spends a long time setting up his stories. To me, it was like watching the show Unchain Reaction based on Rube Goldberg's machines. In the show, the first 25 minutes is all about the concept, design and sorting out the problems and the finale lasts all of 2 minutes. In Larsson's book, the set-up takes 3/4 of the book, but once I was that invested in it, it felt like hitting the top of the hill on a roller-coaster - I just held up my hands and screamed!

Returning to my friend's comment about the violence and the prom - yes, it was pronounced. There are graphic descriptions of the murders, abuse (physical and sexual), and various altercations. As horrible as this all is, it makes Salander seem all that more amazing - to have survived and thrived under conditions that took away her freedom, rights and dignity. I can't say I would recommend this book to everyone - even though it was an the best seller list and such, I think it would appeal to a particular group of readers, unfortunately none that I know, so this book is going to The Little Free Library!