Mailman – A Novel - Hardcover

Lennon, J Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393057313 ISBN 13: 9780393057317

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 2004

Synopsis

Albert Lippinscott is resident of Nestor, New York - mailman extraordinaire. But Albert has something to hide: his unfortunate habit of reading other people's mail. Now his supervisors are onto his letter-hoarding compulsion and he will soon have to confront his life's failures.

About this title

Review

A very revealing sequence occurs about 160 or so pages into J Robert Lennon's magnificent fourth novel, Mailman. Albert Lippincott, the eponymous, anal, postal worker, finds himself regularly tasked with delivering mail to Maurice Renault, his old physics tutor. "As often as not, Renault", who is by then a celebrity egghead, "met Mailman at the front door, always friendly" but in three years he never "seemed to recognise him".

Not recalling an old student is, arguably, fairly understandable but in Lippincott's case it's surprising; he once attempted to bite (yes, bite) Renault's eyes out in a lecture theatre. It's the kind of incident, even with the passing of a number of years, which would make a face a little difficult to forget. And yet clad in his uniform, Lippincott is all but invisible. As far as Renault, or anyone else in Nester, New York, is concerned he's just the Mailman; a point Lennon enunciates, beautifully, by addressing him simply as "Mailman" throughout the book. Those who rely on him for their post are blissfully ignorant of his troubled history: the breakdown at university, the failed marriage and romantic affairs, his latently incestuous relationship with Gillian, his sister, the addiction to pornography and the downright, peculiar circumstances that led to him being (erroneously, as it happens) accused of exposing himself in a public library. He, on the other hand, knows everything about their lives because he habitually, steals and reads their correspondence.

Lippincott is, as the brief catalogue of his woes and predilections above hints, not especially likeable--Postman Pat he certainly isn't. He does have a cat (four in total, actually). None of them, however, are black and white and one he abandons on waste ground miles from home; he later holds a fraudulent funeral to put an inquisitive girlfriend off the scent. His caustic, self-pitying ruminations on failure, love, his parents and small town American life, all bumper-stickered Volvos and glad-handing mayors, never quite hit the venomous existentialism of, say, Frederick Exley in A Fan's Notes, but there's a strain of good old-fashioned male alienation to his world view. Lennon joins Pynchon and Bukowski, in delivering a truly affecting, bleakly comic epic from the protean travails of a pitifully screwed up letter carrier. --Travis Elborough

Review

Mailman is madness, pure dazzling energy. Lennon's writing contains enough electricity to light up the country. -- Ann Patchett

At heart, the unforgettable Mailman is a romantic, and Mailman is a great American romance. -- Sigrid Nunez

Hilarious, touching, and so outrageous...one of the great inescapable characters of our time. -- James Kincaid, Department of English, USC

I found myself completely enthralled by this novel. -- Oscar Hijuelos

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0393057313
• ISBN 13: 9780393057317
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 448