Mailman
by Stephen Starring GrantSetting: Virginia
Genres: Biography & Autobiography / Memoirs
Published on July 8, 2025
Pages: 304
Format: eBook Source: Library
An exuberant, hilarious, and profound memoir by a mailman in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, who found that working for the post office saved his life, taught him who he was, gave him purpose, and educated him deeply about a country he loves but had lost touch with.
Steve Grant was laid off in March of 2020. He was fifty and had cancer, so he needed health insurance, fast. Which is how he found himself a rural letter carrier in Appalachia, back in his old hometown.
Suddenly, he was the guy with the goods, delivering dog food and respirators and lube and heirloom tomato seeds and Lord of the Rings replica swords. He transported chicken feed to grandmothers living alone in the mountains and forded a creek with a refrigerator on his back. But while he carried the mail, he also carried a whole lot more than just the mail, including a family legacy of rage and the anxiety of having lost his identity along with his corporate job.
And yet, slowly, surrounded by a ragtag but devoted band of letter carriers, working this different kind of job, Grant found himself becoming a different kind of person. He became a lifeline for lonely people, providing fleeting moments of human contact and the assurance that our government still cares. He embraced the thrill of tackling new challenges, the pride of contributing to something greater than himself, the joy of camaraderie, and the purpose found in working hard for his family and doing a small, good thing for his community. He even kindled a newfound faith.
A brash and loving portrait of an all-American institution, Mailman offers a deeply felt portrait of both rural America and the dedicated (and eccentric) letter carriers who keep our lives running smoothly day to day. One hell of a raconteur, Steve Grant has written an irreverent, heartfelt, and often hilarious tribute to the simple heroism of daily service, the dignity and struggle of blue-collar work, the challenge and pleasure of coming home again after twenty-five years away, and the delight of going the extra mile for your neighbors, every day.
I’ve always been fascinated by the Postal Service. It seems like magic to me. I like learning about how all the mail gets moved around the country. As soon as I saw this book, I knew I wanted to read it.
The author was desperate for a job when his evaporated in the early stages of COVID. He needs health insurance so he signs up for a job as a substitute rural carrier. The advertisement says it is one day a week. He figures that gives him lots of time to look for another job in his actual field. It is never one day a week.
This is a post office overwhelmed by home shoppers. People are staying indoors and shopping. Everyday is like Christmas season and then they are suddenly collateral damage in a UPS-Amazon bidding war. Everything gets dumped on them because they can’t say no.
But now, when I heard people complain about Zoom meetings, about day drinking, about being bored, I felt something dark—not just jealousy, but hate.
(As another essential worker who worked through the whole pandemic in an office, I feel that one.)
I loved reading about the veteran carriers who were able to visualize every address on their routes and on routes that they had worked in the past in order to get their letters and packages in order every morning. In case you were wondering, your carrier does in fact know a whole lot about you and what gets delivered to your house.
He found that he went from being a highly paid executive to a person who wasn’t very good at a job that is erroneously considered unskilled labor.
There were some mindsets that I didn’t agree with. He thought that he should be able to carry a gun with him because so many people on the route that he was delivering were armed. I’m not a fan of that thinking and he had some confrontations that would have gone worse if would have had a gun with him.
I do agree with his assessment that –
This country is full of people who would love to get rid of books and get rid of the Postal Service.
This was a great combination of books and the postal service that everyone should read. It will make you want to thank your delivery people, to feel bad about ordering heavy things that you could have gone and picked up yourself, and want to leave out drinks on hot or cold days.
