I absolutely loved and devoured this book! I grew up going to the mountains in Virginia, which initially drew me to this story. What came out of it was so much more. I loved hearing about the inner workings of the USPS and the commentary about finding a new career really late in life when circumstances almost force you into it. I appreciated Grant's humor in his storytelling and, as such this has been one of my favorite memoirs to read in the past 5 years. An ode to good ol' virginia, the postal service, and never being too old to do something new- this one had it all.

I absolutely loved this memoir! One of the best memoirs I've ever read. It's hilarious and heartwarming, and I love that it was written by a regular person. I am interested in listening to the audiobook because I would love to hear him tell this story. I'm recommending this to everyone!

Thank you Simon and Schuster for this arc.

When Covid hits, Grant is suddenly out of a white collar job and in desperate need of health insurance due to a cancer diagnosis and a family dependent on him. Eventually he applies for a part-time job as a rural mail carrier.

Then it’s time to really learn the job by doing it and it is hard. Seasoned veterans of the USPS make it look easy. But to sort the mail by delivery address means memorizing the delivery route which can be 60 miles long. The USPS delivery trucks are both sturdy and a nightmare. What to wear to avoid heat stroke or hypothermia? Better learn fast as each year mail carriers die from these. Dogs on the route? Veterans tell the newbies that one day a dog (or two) will have your number and you’d better have two to three cans of HALT!.

Grant experiences the highs and lows of the job. Newbies often don’t last long and some veterans won’t engage with them for up to two months until they prove they’ve got what it takes to stick with it.

During his year, Grant sees those who treat the carriers with respect and those who treat them with disdain. He hauls chicken feed and realizes that “Book of the Month” is still a thing and that mail carriers know everything about their regular customers. He discovers that along with books, delivering mail-in ballots is the most important thing he does all year. More than delivering the mail is learned. Grant does a lot of mid-life self discovery. He’s back in the town he was brought up in but seeing it with different eyes.

There is a lot about politics in this book. 2020 was full of it. Grant spends a chapter on getting back in touch with religion. He describes the smell that mail has and outlines his ‘survival gear.’ He desperately searches for a new corporate job and in the end, gets one. After reading this book, I’ve crossed “mail carrier” off my theoretical list of “that might be interesting to try” jobs but from now on I have a great deal more respect for them. B

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the electronic ARC.

I enjoyed the vast majority of the book about the meat and potatoes of delivering the mail, the job, the coworkers, the whole vocational bit. I did not enjoy the author's "flights of fancy" (imagining delivering mail with President Obama?) and some of his fantastical attempts at wit and extrapolation.
This all said, Mailman was a fun, light read and I would recommend it.

Author Steve Grant was laid off from his job at the start of COVID. He needed insurance due to a serious illness and took a job as a mailman in his hometown in rural Appalachia. Not only is this book fascinating (haven't you always wondered about the life of a letter carrier - think of all they see and experience), but its tender-hearted and lovely in the way it describes you local letter carrier as part of the community. The letter carrier delivers things to people that, at times, need help bringing it to their door or need a chat because they're alone and lonely. This book has layers and I loved every one of them. Heartfelt thanks to the publisher for the advanced copy.

tional and a bit of a shock to most of us.

It was a shock to him too -- he was a white collar manager, a creative type, with a corporate job when the pandemic hit. He got laid off, with a wife and two kids, a mortgage and a medical need for health insurance. He applied to the post office in the Appalachian community he grew up in. From a mail delivery point of view, the area was a mix of difficult rural geography and affluent university town.

His insights about the ethos of the USPS are endearing. Who knew what a difficult job this can be? But along the way, he makes a lot of discoveries about himself that he acknowledges he never would have known in his previous cushy life.

Entertaining, provocative, funny, and touching. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

When Stephen Grant was laid off during Covid, he had just been diagnosed with cancer. Needing health care for himself and his family, he took the only work he could find, delivering USPS mail.

I always knew that the USPS worked very hard to get the mail out come rain or come shine. That’s not simply a slogan, it’s a truth. From reading this book, I now understand that they view this essential work not just as a job, but a public service to the nation.
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I learned lots of fascinating details about how USPS mail is processed and delivered, especially in rural areas, and how it compares to delivery in urban zones. Grant takes you up and down with him from deep pain and despair to literal and spiritual (perhaps that’s redundant) highs! I appreciated the author’s ability to find humor in the difficult. I ’d recommend this book for all readers. Thanks to the publisher for granting me a free ARC from NetGalley. This is my honest and objective review

I was a mail carrier for 2 years and this book brought back a lot of those memories from orientation to first day of training and then finally realizing you got a new job and were going to be able to leave soon. It was one of the toughest jobs I think I have ever had. This book was well written and really explained all of those feelings and inner workings of being in the post office. I felt like I was experiencing all those moments again. It is definitely an interesting read for those who are wondering what it is like to be a mail carrier, especially a rural one.

This wasn't quite the book I was expecting based on the description, but I did find the details about how mail delivery works to be fascinating. With government programs being gutted left and right at the moment this felt like a particularly apt time to read this book.

I think the postal service is a marvel and I so looked forward to reading Mailman by Stephen Starring Grant for the insight and perspective that could only be shared by someone who has worked on the inside and has the intimate knowledge of the day-to-day experiences and expectations of the country’s mail carriers.

Laid off from his corporate job at the start of the pandemic, the author takes a position with the post office so that he can provide his family with health insurance and keep them financially afloat during this uncertain time. Through his perspective, readers get a sense of the serious nature of new employee training, the stress of learning new routes and routines under constant pressure, and the challenges of fulfilling the daily demands with a lack of proper equipment or ill-maintained roads or inhospitable stops, whether due to the people who live there or the animals they keep, and he depicts a system and bureaucracy that are both necessary and crippling to the people who work within it. He also tells stories of helping neighbors and colleagues, of gratitude, and grit, determination, and will. There are many feel-good moments that evoke a real sense of community between mail carriers and the residents on their routes. The sheer volume of envelopes, parcels, packages, and boxes that the postal service transports every day is enormous, and the book helps illustrate how its workers are truly unsung heroes in processing and delivering so many of our daily necessities.

Where the book lost its luster for me was on the numerous occasions when the author extolled his weighty political opinions. They detracted from the story and exacerbated the class divisions between the elite academics and their Appalachian neighbors in this somewhat isolated, rural area. After establishing a sense of community between postal carriers and so many of the residents they serve, it was a disappointing and unnecessary interruption in the flow of the story and the goal in telling it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am from this area and it gave me a bit of nostalgia as he discusses the locations where he worked. The peek behind the scenes of the post office was more interesting than I imagined it would be. It felt like the writing needed one more edit, but who am I to say.

This book is for everyone who had a favorite mail man growing up. Mailman is a well written, witty, heartwarming memoir written by a laid off 50 year old who, of course, becomes a mailman. The book answers all your postal questions and more that I didn't even know to ask. It is truly a picture of our dedicated American postal workers/letter carriers and challenges they face everyday. I'll be buying his for my favorite mail carrier!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this book before its general release.

Overall, Mailman was a fine tale, but one that was too drawn out at times. I’ve always been fascinated with the USPS so reading about the “back office” of a post office, the training regime, and the inside of those iconic mail vehicles was really interesting. However, some of the stories seemed out of place and almost a bit repetitive. The title also mentions how Mr. Grant has cancer, but his cancer was rarely talked about throughout the entire memoir. All in all, I can’t criticize the book much because delivering the mail was Grant’s journey and story to tell. I appreciated the memoir and will definitely be sure to strike up a conversation with my mail person more often.

I loved this book! I was a rural carrier for the USPS for seven years, and this book brought back many memories. It is a hard job, but you do make many connections in the community. Stephen Grant did a great job accurately describing the job, process, and the ins and outs of the USPS. A fantastic memoir!

I really enjoyed this book. It balanced amusing anecdotes with historical context of the job. I loved learning a bit about the inside mechanics of the USPS. This book is definitely a must read if you have any interest at all in the post office.

This is a must read; a stunning revelation of what a USPS carrier does every day.

We think we know. They are a big part of our lives. Yet, most of us have no idea of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

Stephen Grant recalled the hardship of losing his top marketing job at 51 years old during the pandemic. He gave a personal account of what it was like to go from a professional job to one of manual labor in the Blue Mountains of Blacksburg, Virginia.

His writing was engaging with stories of the people – some whom we wanted to hug. He revealed how he passed the initial test of being a carrier, learning the difficult back-road routes and putting up with unexpected issues like dogs.

He also tossed in some historical facts and talked about the importance of food, drinks, the right clothes and temperament on the road. Other big topics included: the post office vehicle, guns that aren’t allowed, his views on politics and the importance of family and friends.

Mail carriers are a huge part of our lives. We depend on what they bring us and wave to them when they pass by. It was insightful to read all about one person’s highs to lows and everything in between.

Mailman is a memoir by Stephen “Starring” Grant that chronicles his unexpected journey from corporate executive to rural mail carrier during the COVID-19 pandemic. The book is structured around his day-to-day experiences delivering mail across the back roads of Appalachia, while reflecting on themes of identity, work, and community. Along the way, Grant sheds light on the inner workings of the USPS and captures the character of the communities he serves in rural Virginia. The narrative is conversational and anecdotal, filled with personal stories and observations from his new life on the route.

I found Mailman to be a unique and heartfelt story of reinvention. Grant’s shift from the boardroom to the mail truck is both humorous and sincere, and his love for the people and places of the Appalachian region comes through clearly. I appreciated how the book highlights the value of public service and the quiet importance of everyday jobs. While the writing style is casual and accessible, it sometimes drifts into tangents or repetition—particularly in sections dealing with pandemic-era isolation. These detours occasionally slow the pacing but also show Grant’s genuine concern for human connection. His honesty, warmth, and humor ultimately make this memoir engaging and memorable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

"Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home" will be released on July 8, 2025. A big thank you to the publisher and author for providing an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley.

4 stars.

Unique and absolutely hilarious, Stephen Grant gives readers an inside look into the inner workings of the United States Postal Service through his memoir. I’ll admit—I knew little to nothing about the USPS before reading this book, but now I have to say I’m a big fan of America’s oldest self-funded organization (I even followed the USPS on Instagram!). For 240 years (WOW!!!), the USPS has connected Americans across the states, and the way this mammoth organization operates is truly fascinating. Also contrary to popular belief —it's a self-funded organization that uses ZERO American tax dollars. One of the many things I took away from the memoir is that being a letter carrier is an exhausting and thankless position. We should all be thanking our postal workers more often!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Grant finds himself—like many others at the time—laid off without any promising job opportunities to return to corporate America. Needing health insurance, he decides to take a position as a letter carrier, which becomes the basis of his memoir.

I was originally drawn to this book because my father grew up in rural Appalachia in southwest Virginia, not far from where this memoir takes place. The descriptions of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the communities nestled within them reminded me of the trips we took to visit my father's side of the family.

One thing I wasn’t expecting from a memoir about the USPS was to find myself laughing out loud through most of the book. Grant’s ability to add humor while reflecting on the chaos we all collectively experienced during COVID-19 really showcases his talent as a writer. I truly loved this book, and if you’re looking for a unique read, make sure to add it to your TBR list!

The U.S. Post Office may be one of the most complained-about services in the country. We who have never been tasked with delivery of the mail should read this book. “Thank you for your service,” I now want to say to all mail carriers. In recent years, it’s become customary to thank our men and women in uniform for their military service, and it may be time to add our postal employees.

"Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home" by Stephen Starring Grant is an eye-opener. I highly recommend it.

“Mailman” is a thorough, comprehensive, richly detailed look at the history and scope of our mail delivery system. It's also a quirky and entertaining glimpse into one year in the life of a rural mail carrier. We know about rain, snow, sleet, and hail, and how physically mail delivery can be, but I had no idea it was so daunting mentally and even intellectually.

"What carrying mail taught me is that modern life has made us strangely weak in many ways,” Grant writes. “Weak memories of space, for numbers, for language. Our bodies are capable of walking tens of miles every day, of memorizing every fold of huge territories, of tolerating great heat and great cold, yet in our modern life all these abilities are latent."

He mentions "place" memory - taxi drivers are also legendary for this - and notes, "The most remarkable thing about this place memory is that the carriers saw nothing remarkable about it all." They had humility. A "get-it-done, let's not make a big deal out of this" realism.

Every day, his first three weeks, he vowed to quit. He had been a career professional, until the pandemic shut down his job. “For decades I had been–at the risk of sounding like an egomoaniac–very good at what I did… I wasn’t used to things being this hard.” Adults can learn new skills, yes, “if you simply stuck with it and embraced the discomfort of feeling incompetent.” The immediate impulse to quit “comes from the desire to stop profoundly painful feelings of embarrassment and inadequacy.” He lacked focus, hadn’t paid attention, was slow and error-prone, was certain he’d get fired.

Of course, Grant gets good at this gig. The pandemic ends, and he goes back to his former career, but his year as a mailman is one of the most memorable of memoirs. Thank you, Stephen Starring Grant, for enlightening us about a job most of us couldn’t do, wouldn’t do, and take for granted when others do it.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an Advance Review Copy of this book.

Many of us have had our mail delivered all our lives without ever really thinking about the experience of those who deliver it. Stephen Starring Grant fills in that blank space with an entertaining recounting of his year as a rural delivery mailman in Virginia. It is an eye-opening story that shows how much mail delivery people actually do behind the scenes as well as in their visible daily rounds. This is the kind of immersive story I appreciate, and anyone who yearns to know more about a widely known but insufficiently understood sector of the workforce.