Sarah Blake lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, the poet Josh Weiner, and their two sons.
"Some novels we savor for their lapidary prose, others for their
flesh and blood characters, and still others for a sweeping
narrative arc that leaves us light- headed and changed; Sarah
Blake's masterful, "The Postmistress," serves us all this and more.
Compassionate, insightful, and unsentimental, this masterful novel
is told in a rare and highly successful omniscient voice, one that
delves deeply into the seemingly random nature of love and war and
story itself. This is a superb book!"
-Andre Dubus III, author of "House of Sand and Fog"
""The Postmistress" is the fictional communique readers have waited
for. Sarah Blake has brought small-town American life and ravaged
Europe during WWII to us with cinematic immediacy. The romantic,
harrowing -- and utterly inimitable-- story of radio journalist
Frankie Bard (appalled yet intoxicated by tragedy as no character
I've ever read before) contains the uncompromised sensibility found
in the writings of Martha Gellhorn. "The Postmistress" belongs in
what Gellhorn called "the permanent and necessary" library."
-Howard Norman, author of "The Bird Artist and Devotion"
"Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day until you
finally get to crawl back inside those pages again. "The
Postmistress" is one of those rare books. When I wasn't reading it,
I was thinking about it. Sarah Blake seamlessly moves from inside
one character to another, in a novel that reminds us of a time when
the news travelled from post to paper to radio and that is how we
learned about the world. "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."
-Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help
"An unforgettable, insightful, and compelling novel The
Postmistress engages the reader's instincts at the deep level of
fight or flight. For WWII radio reporter Frankie Bard, however, the
gut response to horror is see and tell. Sarah Blake's prose
perfectly recreates the cadences of passion and of the inner life
while also conjuring up the wrenching, nightmare suspense of
history in the making."
-Sena Jeter Naslund, author of "Ahab's Wife" and "Abundance, a
Novel of Marie Antoinette"
"To open Blake's novel of World War II and the convergence of three
strong women is to enter a slipstream, so powerful are its
velocity, characters, and drama. How can you resist Frankie Bard,
an American journalist of gumption and vision who is bravely
reporting on the Blitz from London? Her distinctive voice and
audacious candor are heard on radios everywhere on the home front,
including Cape Cod, where Iris James, in love for the first time at
40, keeps things shipshape at a small-town post office. The third
in Blake's triumvirate of impressive women, Emma, the waiflike wife
of the town's doctor, is not as obvious a candidate for heroism
until a tragedy induces her husband to join the war effort. As
Frankie risks her life to record the stories of imperiled Jews,
Iris and Emma struggle to maintain order as America goes
reluctantly to war. Blake raises unsettling questions about the
randomness of violence and death, and the simultaneity of
experience--how can people frolic on a beach while others are being
murdered? Matching harrowing action with reflection, romance with
pathos, Blake's emotional saga of conscience and genocide is poised
to become a best-seller of the highest echelon."
-Donna Seaman, ALA Booklist, Starred review
"Even readers who don't think they like historical novels will love
this one and talk it up to their friends. Highly recommended for
all fans of beautifully wrought fiction."
-Library Journal, Starred Review
Frankie Bard is a young female reporter in London during the Blitz, working with the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Eric Severeid. Her broadcasts make an impression on the residents of Franklin, MA-Dr. Will Fitch and wife Emma, garage owner Harry Vale, and postmaster Iris James-who in 1940-41 don't know how or if the war will affect them. Harry is sure the Germans are about to land on their beach, while, hearing Frankie talk of an orphaned boy, Emma and Will don't feel the news goes far enough. Iris insists that "there is an order and a reason" to everything, and "every letter sent.proves it." First novelist Blake doesn't let her work fall prey to easy sentimentality; this story is harsh and desperate, as indeed is war, but her writing is incisive and lush: a house missing a piece of mortar, "as if it had been bitten"; a distracted Iris, with "sand.dribbling out of the bag of her attention." VERDICT Even readers who don't think they like historical novels will love this one and talk it up to their friends. Highly recommended for all fans of beautifully wrought fiction. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/09.]-Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
"Some novels we savor for their lapidary prose, others for their
flesh and blood characters, and still others for a sweeping
narrative arc that leaves us light- headed and changed; Sarah
Blake's masterful, "The Postmistress," serves us all this and more.
Compassionate, insightful, and unsentimental, this masterful novel
is told in a rare and highly successful omniscient voice, one that
delves deeply into the seemingly random nature of love and war and
story itself. This is a superb book!"
-Andre Dubus III, author of "House of Sand and Fog"
""The Postmistress" is the fictional communique readers have waited
for. Sarah Blake has brought small-town American life and ravaged
Europe during WWII to us with cinematic immediacy. The romantic,
harrowing -- and utterly inimitable-- story of radio journalist
Frankie Bard (appalled yet intoxicated by tragedy as no character
I've ever read before) contains the uncompromised sensibility found
in the writings of Martha Gellhorn. "The Postmistress" belongs in
what Gellhorn called "the permanent and necessary" library."
-Howard Norman, author of "The Bird Artist and Devotion"
"Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day until you
finally get to crawl back inside those pages again. "The
Postmistress" is one of those rare books. When I wasn't reading it,
I was thinking about it. Sarah Blake seamlessly moves from inside
one character to another, in a novel that reminds us of a time when
the news travelled from post to paper to radio and that is how we
learned about the world. "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."
-Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help
"An unforgettable, insightful, and compelling novel The
Postmistress engages the reader's instincts at the deep level of
fight or flight. For WWII radio reporter Frankie Bard, however, the
gut response to horror is see and tell. Sarah Blake's prose
perfectly recreates the cadences of passion and of the inner life
while also conjuring up the wrenching, nightmare suspense of
history in the making."
-Sena Jeter Naslund, author of "Ahab's Wife" and "Abundance, a
Novel of Marie Antoinette"
"To open Blake's novel of World War II and the convergence of three
strong women is to enter a slipstream, so powerful are its
velocity, characters, and drama. How can you resist Frankie Bard,
an American journalist of gumption and vision who is bravely
reporting on the Blitz from London? Her distinctive voice and
audacious candor are heard on radios everywhere on the home front,
including Cape Cod, where Iris James, in love for the first time at
40, keeps things shipshape at a small-town post office. The third
in Blake's triumvirate of impressive women, Emma, the waiflike wife
of the town's doctor, is not as obvious a candidate for heroism
until a tragedy induces her husband to join the war effort. As
Frankie risks her life to record the stories of imperiled Jews,
Iris and Emma struggle to maintain order as America goes
reluctantly to war. Blake raises unsettling questions about the
randomness of violence and death, and the simultaneity of
experience--how can people frolic on a beach while others are being
murdered? Matching harrowing action with reflection, romance with
pathos, Blake's emotional saga of conscience and genocide is poised
to become a best-seller of the highest echelon."
-Donna Seaman, ALA Booklist, Starred review
"Even readers who don't think they like historical novels will love
this one and talk it up to their friends. Highly recommended for
all fans of beautifully wrought fiction."
-Library Journal, Starred Review
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