The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman: A Novel - Hardcover

Fleming, John Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571198791 ISBN 13: 9780571198795

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1996

Synopsis

A postmaster and a New York journalist embellish the experiences of the local immigrant mail carrier in order to create a tourist trade in a small post-Civil War Florida town

About this title

Review:

A mix of comedy, tragedy, and misdirected mail carries this beautiful novel about a naive European immigrant who seeks his fortune in 1880s South Florida. The area was still very much a frontier then, and to get the mail settlers had to walk the beach for 60 miles. Josef Steinmetz arrives from Europe to start a new life, but after several disastrous turns--including the loss of his wife, orchard, and new shoes--he hooks up with goofball entrepreneur Earl Shank and becomes the legendary mailman of the title.

From Publishers Weekly:

Striving to blend its series of picaresque adventures with more serious themes about the American frontier, this first novel doesn't quite have the tonal range to pull it off. Fleming tells of the legend of Florida's "Barefoot Mailman"?a white child who was marooned and raised by Indians and honors his foster people by performing his job unshod. That's the legend. The real story comes from Brooklyn, in the person of an Austrian immigrant named Josef Steinmetz who, after the Civil War, moves to the backwater town of Figulus, Fla., to cultivate citrus fruits. An unlikely string of events culminates with Josef burning down his orchard and accepting a job as a postal carrier: his only duty is to carry the mail from Figulus to the resort town of Biscayne and back, a distance of 60 miles along a barren beach. To honor the memory of his late uncle (whose last act of kindness was to purchase for Josef a pair of loafers that have been lost in the mail), he performs this task barefoot. Once. During which time he's captured by Indians, rescued by brigands whose real interest is ransoming him themselves and suffers from a case of heat exposure so bad it lands him in the hospital. That one time, however, is enough to catch the eye of a newspaper reporter from New York, who writes a fictive article on the "Barefoot Mailman." The legend is carried on by Earl Shank, postmaster of Figulus and dreamer of big dreams, who, shortly after Josef's departure, receives the loafers. As befits a tall tale, the characters are broadly drawn. But too many metaphors and ideas remain unplumbed, and too often the humor cuts against the grain of plot situations that demand more texture.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0571198791
• ISBN 13: 9780571198795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216