Laura S. (BookHappy) reviewed on + 32 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
There are many novels and films whose plots will fit easily on the back of an envelope. Most of them fill in the spaces with lots of action or car crashes. This one does not; instead we we are smothered in more detail than is necessary to explain the plot. Believe you me, it was about enough to make me scream or at least take a stern red pencil to the pages of the novel.
A small-town doctor suffers guilt after a patient dies in childbirth. Said patient should have known enough to get to a doctor or hospital when her water broke, but that is an issue not addressed. This part of the story was much too drawn out, in my opinion. So anyway, the good and decent Dr. Fitch leaves his young wife to volunteer his services in London at the height of the Blitz.
I was going to say that the story follows two women in the days before the United States got involved in World War Two. But on second thought, there are actually three. The young wife of the above doctor, named Emma. The postmistress in the same small town that Dr and Mrs Fitch live in; her name is Iris James. Then Frankie Bard, the radio reporter who gets a minute or two on Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts to relate her stories.
The basic plot is that Dr. Fitch leaves a letter in the care of Postmaster James in case of his demise to give to Emma. But since the doc is overseas on his own, no one is responsible to report whether he is missing or not. The postmaster does receive a letter from Fitch's landlady in London, saying that he seems to be missing, but that letter is not delivered.
Well, needless to say the doc buys the farm fairly early in the novel. By chance, Frankie scoops up his last unmailed letter to his wife, intending to mail it to Mrs. Fitch. But Frankie is about to spend three weeks in France and Germany, riding the rails and recording people's stories. She never mails it, but after a rest, travels to the Fitch's hometown to hand deliver it.
Well! Is she ever stunned to realize that no one has told Mrs. Fitch that she is a widow. She never delivers the letter, but the postmaster finally delivers the doctor's letter that he had entrusted to her safekeeping.
A small-town doctor suffers guilt after a patient dies in childbirth. Said patient should have known enough to get to a doctor or hospital when her water broke, but that is an issue not addressed. This part of the story was much too drawn out, in my opinion. So anyway, the good and decent Dr. Fitch leaves his young wife to volunteer his services in London at the height of the Blitz.
I was going to say that the story follows two women in the days before the United States got involved in World War Two. But on second thought, there are actually three. The young wife of the above doctor, named Emma. The postmistress in the same small town that Dr and Mrs Fitch live in; her name is Iris James. Then Frankie Bard, the radio reporter who gets a minute or two on Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts to relate her stories.
The basic plot is that Dr. Fitch leaves a letter in the care of Postmaster James in case of his demise to give to Emma. But since the doc is overseas on his own, no one is responsible to report whether he is missing or not. The postmaster does receive a letter from Fitch's landlady in London, saying that he seems to be missing, but that letter is not delivered.
Well, needless to say the doc buys the farm fairly early in the novel. By chance, Frankie scoops up his last unmailed letter to his wife, intending to mail it to Mrs. Fitch. But Frankie is about to spend three weeks in France and Germany, riding the rails and recording people's stories. She never mails it, but after a rest, travels to the Fitch's hometown to hand deliver it.
Well! Is she ever stunned to realize that no one has told Mrs. Fitch that she is a widow. She never delivers the letter, but the postmaster finally delivers the doctor's letter that he had entrusted to her safekeeping.
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