The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake

Straddling two continents during the tumultuous early years of the second world war, Sarah Blake's novel is a masterpiece, evoking bygone days with clarity and insight.

Moving back and forth from Franklin, Massachusetts, a small town in Cape Cod to overseas in London, England, Sarah chronicles the lives of two women. Iris James is Franklin's postmistress - her deeply held belief in the orderliness of the U.S. postal service mirrors a life with rigidly held beliefs of right and wrong.

In London, U.S. news broadcaster, Frankie Bard, is one of only a handful of women on the radio during wartime. Working under the tutelage of Edward R. Murrow, Frankie is learning how to report the insanity of the Blitz and how people's lives are being destroyed or simply disappearing in the aftermaths of nightime bombing.

The lives of Iris James and Frankie Bard intersect with the letters of Will Fitch, Franklin's medical doctor, who volunteers to help in the war effort in London while his wife Emma waits at home, praying for his safe return. Every day Emma walks to the post office gathering Will's daily letters under Iris James' watchful eye. As Iris starts to take Emma's welfare to heart, a letter arrives from Will's landlady in London, bringing the worst kind of news. Despite her fervant belief in the sanctity of the post office credo, Iris decides to hide the letter from Emma. But yet another letter exists, this one being held by Frankie who meets Will in an Underground station after a night of bombing. Will either of these letters ever find their way to Emma?

Sarah Blake's voyage into the lives of ordinary people dealing with extraordinary times is more than the story of a husband, a wife, a postmistress and a radio broadcaster. Sarah ably conveys the atmosphere of wartime, where the adrenaline rush of staying alive can make some wish the war would never end. But when friends and familiar faces fail to show up and the death toll mounts, those left behind must find ways to cope with these continuous loses. And, as Frankie discovers, unlike the randomness of war in London, which strikes down civilains and soldiers with no discernable pattern, the war in other parts of Europe contains a much more systematic and meticulously planned carnage - to mobilize and move all of European Jewry into ghettos, work camps, and utlimate death, as the Nazi regime begins it's implentation of a greater Aryan world.

I highly recommend this book. Sarah Blake has found a private and intimate voice for the horrors of World War Two, which does much more to bring the reality of loss to the reader than any list of casualties and deaths could convey. For more information on the author, and to listen to the author share her inspiration for the story, you can link to Sarah Blake's website, at http://www.sarahblakebooks.com/

The Other Family, Joanna Trollope

I think Joanne Trollope is a wonderful writer and was looking forward to diving into her latest [2010] book, The Other Family.

As always, Joanna finds new ways to explore human characteristics and emotions so well.

It seems that quite a few books I've been reading lately are taking the time to explore both sides of relationships in greater detail. Rather than learning how the "wronged" spouse feels when husband/wife leaves for another, more and more writers are trying to understand how both parties are impacted. And there is also more attention paid to the pivotal character who is leaving one relationship for another. No longer merely a selfish villian, the betwixt/between character is now often portrayed as another frail human being caught in an emotionally fraught situation -- loving two people, not wanting to hurt either party.

Emily Griffin portrayed the complexity and humanity in this now common reality, in her recent release [2010], Matters of the Heart. And, the difference is important. Rather than seeing a situation as simple "good vs. evil" or "moral vs. immoral" writers are portraying all parties as vulnerable human beings capable of both altruistic and selfish behavior. It makes for much more believable characters and a greater sense of realism.

In The Othe Family, we learn how the first wife Margaret -- left behind over two decades ago-- and the second wife Chrissie, left behind by her husband's recent death, cope with the lose of a key husband figure in both their lives - Richie Rossiter.

Richie, a talented piano player and singer whose career was definitely on the wane prior to his sudden death, leaves behind two families who are deeply affected by his lose. More unexpected, if possible, than his death, is his bequest to leave his prized piano and early musical scores to his first wife.

Margaret must come to terms with the lose of hoping that her husband will one day come back to her. Her son Scott has forgiven his father for abandoning his first family and is even willing to befriend his new-found stepsisters. But are they willing to accept his friendship?

Chrissie and her three daughters are bereft, abandoned, stunned by both the loss of a beloved husband and father, and trying to cope with the new reality that their lifestyle must change as their new financial picture is bleak.

Chrissie expects her daughters to rally around her, to staunchly defend themselves against all others, especially her husband's former family.

There are no villians in this story, just people trying to cope with change and loss. I think Joanna has done a wonderful portrayal of six lives affected by the same tragedy, each needing to find their own way through the grieving process.

I love being able to recommend Canadian authors, so I was happy to get my hands on Robert J. Wiersema's latest book, Bedtime Story, as part of my holiday reading. His first novel, Before I Wake, received great reviews, and I am confident this second novel will be likewise acclaimed.

The novel contains two plots, a book within a book, and plots within plots unfold as we read along. The main characters are Christopher Knox, an almost separated husband who still lives over the garage and helps raise his son, David who shares the main house with Christopher's almost-ex wife Jacqui.

Christopher is a writer whose first novel succeeded quite well. However, too many years have gone by without finishing his second novel for Christopher to not be losing faith in his ability as a writer. Coupled with his lack of failure as a husband, Christopher is desperate to be a success in at least one area of his life: fatherhood. As a way of marking his son David's eleventh birthday, he buys him a rare copy of a book he had enjoyed himself as a young boy.

David, at first disappointed he didn't get the Tolkien series, Lord of the Rings, soon finds himself immersed in his Dad's gift and becomes more and more distracted by the plot. Christopher is thrilled to have captured his son's attention, until the day that David suffers a seizure while reading and enters what becomes an enduring coma. The doctors are completely at loss as to the cause of the coma. Christopher is determined to figure out what is going wrong and soon begins to believe that the book itself has caused the coma.

The story now becomes two stories, the first being Christopher's attempts to find out how a book can be causing his son's coma, the second being David's story and how he is magically drawn into the knights and wizards legend where his own survival may depend on his succesfully completing a fictional quest.

This book delivers on many levels and is a fun blend of modern fiction writing and fantasy fiction. I am sure it will appeal to many types of readers.


To read the Globe and Mail review of this book, you can link to: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/bedtime-story-by-robert-wiersema/article1805935/

Life among the Lutherans, Garrion Keillor

As we approach the holiday season, it's time to indugent in a few sweets. Garrison Keillor's newest books, "Life among the Lutherans" definitely falls in the "sweet" category of easy reading.

Poking gentle fun at the mid-west American breed of Lutherans -- no hugging allowed except perhaps a sideways hug, but only after 30 years of friendship -- Garrison shares slices of daily life for Pastor Ingqvist and his flock.

Life for the Lutherans in Lake Wobegon is not without its ups and downs, but Garrison coats it all with a gentle soothing self-depracating humour. I enjoyed the first few stories the most, but by the end I was getting little drowsy.

Anyway, it's a fun read for a quiet afternoon.

True Porn Clerk Stories, by Ali Davis

Everyone has to work somewhere and sometimes you take what you can get. For Ali Davis, an artist and writer, working in a video store that rents porn is just a golden opportunity to diversify her life's experiences.

With a wry sense of humour, Davis ruminations on the clientele who favor porn and the incidental disgusting bits, like "spooge" (semen) blobs on returned videos tell a tale not often heard in polite society.

Who rents porn? The lonely, the disenfranchised, the disturbed? Or merely the curious? Have a great read with this one - Ali's writing is to the point, honest and real.

After the Fall, by Catherine Gildiner

This book is a continuation of Catherine Gildiner's life story which she started in her previous novel, "Too Close to the Falls."

Catherine Gildiner's childhood was, even by her standards, a little precocious. Unable to sit still, she was taken to a professional who advised she get a job. Since she was only four years old at the time, this might have proved a little difficult. But, since her parents were not constrained by what the neighbours might think, her father, who owned the local pharmacy, starting bringing Catherine to work. It was the basis of her informal life education and as this second book proves, work became a constant she could return to whenever life become too overwhelming.

When Catherine's father sold his pharmacy at a loss in order to move Catherine to a better neighborhood school, Catherine lost her roots and found herself struggling to make it in the cutthroat social caste system known as High School. Her quirky and original thinking often led to rebellious acts but Catherine was at heart, just looking for truth, justice, and functionality. Surviving high school, Catherine moved on to University and began a relationship with football hero cum poet which eventually led to her invovlement in the civil rights movement.

Catherine's recollection of her teenage and college years coincide with the turbulence of the sixties' generation. Searching for meaning in a life with very few tangible roots and little direction to help her make adult choices, Catherine's story of learning to live with and love her parents and herself reveal a lot about the choices we all make in our live. Once again Catherine's naivete and guilelessness tinged with fear of men and lack of experience bring her to the brink of once again floundering in her life's choices.

This book is very well written and makes for an excellent read.

Inheritance, By Nicholas Shakespeare

Written in 2010, this is Shakespeare's sixth novel, but the first of his books that I have read, and I am eager to read more!

Some people just seem to fall into their lives and Andy Larkham is a perfect example. When he is late for his professor's funeral and rushing to arrive before the ceremony is completely finished, Andy ends up at the wrong funeral service. It takes a while to realize the eulogy is not for his professor, but for a man he doesn't know. It's an even bigger shock when he finds out he is inheriting millions of dollars for merely showing up to the funeral regardless of his lack of relationship to the deceased.

When the furious daughter of the deceased finds out her inheritances is threatened by Andy's appearance, she befriends him and in embarrasment or perhaps fear of her contesting the will, he creates a fictitious relationship with the deceased. To assuage his guilt, he finally starts researching the deceased's history and ends up on a roller coaster trip through the history of Armenia, immigration to Australia, and finds the true rags-to-riches story of the man whose past life now guides Andy's path even though they never met.

This is a wonderful story, very original and has terrific character development. While the plot does digress here and there, we are drawn along with the story because the characters are so believable. In the end, we learn a bit about different cultures and a lot about human nature.