Discussion 3 - The Postmistress

I found this section to read faster than any other part of the book so far, and for that I'm thankful.  However, Frankie's time on the train about shot my anxiety level through the roof! Holy crud buckets.  I just do not understand how so many people looked the other way as Jews were discriminated against and moved.  Boggles my mind and hurts my heart every damn time I read about it.  Fiction or non.  Horrible.  People who deny the Holocaust, I just have no words for them.  Well, I do, but they are not kind.

1. Do you think Iris is doing the right thing by holding on to the letter? Why or Why not? What would you have done?
2. Much of The Postmistress is centered on Frankie’s radio broadcasts—either Frankie broadcasting them, or the other characters listening to them. How do you think the experience of listening to the news via radio in the 1940s differs from our experience of getting news from the television or the Internet? What is the difference between hearing news and seeing pictures, or reading accounts of news? Do you think there is something that the human voice conveys that the printed word cannot?
3.  We know that Emma was orphaned, that Will’s father had drinking problems, that Iris’s brother was killed in the First War, and that Frankie grew up in a brownstone in Washington Square. How do these characters’ backgrounds shape the decisions that they make? And if we didn’t have this information, would our opinion of the characters and their actions change?
4. When Frankie returns to America, she doesn’t understand finds it impossible to grasp that people are calmly going about their lives while war rages in Europe. What part does complacency play in The Postmistress?

Thanks for participating! I will be adding the poll up for suggestions sometime today! Next week will be the last discussion over the rest of the book.