Mailman
by J. Robert Lennon
Granta $210
At the age of 20, in his third year at university as a would-be physicist, Albert Lippincott discovers the deepest secrets of the universe. In a stroke of serendipity, he develops 'a genuine actual-size infinitely dimensional map of all realities of this universe and all others'. He is the vessel for the knowledge that would allow a transition from 'the age of incomprehension' to 'the age of understanding'. He knows this wisdom must be shared and he does this by trying to bite the eyes of his physics professor.
Be thankful for J. Robert Lennon's sense of humour, or this would be a terminally depressing book. Lennon's quirky, comic epic, set in small-town America, highlights the absurdities and little injustices we all have to live with, and illustrates how the quest for knowledge, particularly answers to big questions like how the universe works, can drive anyone mad. Yet seek we must, and some of us are more compelled than others. Some of us are like Mailman.
Mailman is Albert Lippincott. He's been a postman in an upstate New York town nearly all of his adult life. Every morning, he wakes at dawn but doesn't open his eyes because a war veteran once told him that he must 'always assume the enemy is watching'. Still keeping his eyes shut, he opens a container by his bed and counts out 20 grains of rice, which he chews slowly while he 'absolves himself of the previous day's mistakes'.
Readers will still be laughing at the 57-year-old little boy playing soldier when Lennon confronts them with the realisation that this is a middle-aged man who knows he's failed. Mailman is alone in bed, confronting his mistakes while keeping his eyes closed, shutting out the rest of the world.