THE POSTMISTRESS Arrives Today
One of the debuts we’re watching this season is The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. Many have compared it to Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. In fact, it’s received strong praise from Stockett (she even interviews Blake on Amazon’s site), and both books share the same editor, Amy Einhorn, who has her own imprint at Putnam.
In today’s New York Times, Janet Maslin also makes the comparison to The Help, which she calls a “socially conscious pulp best seller,”
Each of these novels appropriates galvanizing social issues in the service of a well-wrought tear-jerker. And each is crammed with talking points.
But Maslin also admits,
…the real strength of  The Postmistress lies in its ability to strip away readers’ defenses against stories of wartime uncertainty and infuse that chaos with wrenching immediacy and terror.
She also predicts that, like The Help, “this book will click in a major way.”
The books may share many qualities, but the settings are different. Rather than 1960’s Mississippi, The Postmistress takes place during World War II, which has led others to compare it to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society.
The Postmistress releases today and has been steadily rising on Amazon (it’s now at #84). Library holds are also growing rapidly on conservative ordering; as high as 210 on 16 copies.
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Available from Blackstone Audiobooks
- CD: $100; ISBN 9781441725714
- MP3 CD: $29.95; ISBN 9781441725745
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February 9th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Janet Maslin’s review of the Postmistress is not only condescending but also mistaken. She refers to Franklin, Massachusetts as “a fictitious burg.” Go look at a map, Maslin!
Franklin is no more fictitious than the man for which it was named!
I used to go to Franklin when I was in grade school. Half of Franklin was owned by my father’s best friend!