Mailman

My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home

Stephen Starring Grant

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• eBook ISBN:
  9781668018064
• Index: Social Sciences

The triumphant New York Times bestseller!

“Warm and oddly patriotic...A working-class hero is something to be.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

An uproarious and “utterly charming” (The Washington Post) 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 quirky 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 “warm and oddly patriotic” (The New York Times) look at both rural America and the dedicated (and eccentric) letter carriers who keep our lives running smoothly day to day. “A compelling and empathetic guide” (The Atlantic), 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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Author’s Note
• Overture: Your Tax Dollars at Work
• Chapter One: Fuck City
• Chapter Two: Two Four Zero Six Zero
• Chapter Three: Motivated Reasoning
• Chapter Four: Two Kinds of People
• Chapter Five: Without Any Mental Reservation
• Chapter Six: FNG
• Chapter Seven: Wilderness of Mirrors
• Chapter Eight: From the People Who Brought You the F-14 Tomcat and the Grant Family Canoes
• Chapter Nine: Privately Owned Vehicle
• Chapter Ten: Down by the River
• Chapter Eleven: Lest I Tear You in Pieces, and There Be None to Deliver
• Chapter Twelve: Namaste
• Chapter Thirteen: Christmas in July Forever
• Chapter Fourteen: Earth’s Most Customer-centric Company!
• Chapter Fifteen: Polo Shirts
• Chapter Sixteen: Anarchy on the High Seas
• Chapter Seventeen: United States Postal Service, Ma’am
• Chapter Eighteen: High Lonesome
• Chapter Nineteen: The Things I Carried
• Chapter Twenty: A Peaceful Transfer of Power
• Chapter Twenty-One: Santa Claus and Sam Colt Fistfight in Heaven
• Chapter Twenty-Two: Feast of the Epiphany
• Chapter Twenty-Three: Under Color of Authority
• Chapter Twenty-Four: Book of the Month
• Chapter Twenty-Five: Rescue Party
• Chapter Twenty-Six: The Thousand Natural Shocks
• Chapter Twenty-Seven: Thank You for Your Service
• Chapter Twenty-Eight: Pancakes
• Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Varieties of Religious Experience in the Rural Letter Carrier
• Chapter Thirty: The Last Mile
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright