Albert Entwistle is a private man with a quiet, simple life. He lives alone with his cat Gracie. And he’s a postman. At least he was a postman until, three months before his sixty-fifth birthday, he receives a letter from the Royal Mail thanking him for decades of service and stating he is being forced into retirement. At once, Albert’s sole connection with his world unravels. Every day as a mail carrier, he would make his way through the streets of his small English town, delivering letters and parcels and returning greetings with a quick wave and a “how do?” Without the work that fills his days, what will be the point? He has no friends, family, or hobbies—just a past he never speaks of, and a lost love that fills him with regret.

Review

Charles Harry

A super-feelgood (eventually) story of Albert, a 64yo postman in a Northern town, whose miserably closeted and lonely life has dwindled to nothing, and how he comes out of his shell, makes friends, enhances other people’s lives along with his own, and seeks his long lost love.

It starts bleak and stays that way for a while, with the flashbacks to Albert’s youth, his vile homophobic father, his miserable mother, and the awful oppressive society and laws that had such a horrendous effect on so many lives. These are done very well, which is to say they’re pretty gutting to read. But this is more than counterbalanced by the blossoming of his life once he sets himself out to remake it. That’s very much rainbows and sparkles turned up to 11, but he bloody well deserves rainbows and sparkles and you’d be a curmudgeon not to go along for the ride. Terrific sense of place and time, too. And how nice to have a properly older portage getting romance.

Nick Stephen

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is an amazing journey of lost love. Our title character sixty-four-year-old Postman Albert Entwistle and his friend George Atkinson fell in love as young boys in a time when gay men were not generally accepted in society, some fifty-plus years ago.

I loved the honest reflection of how life was back in the 1970s and the emotions looking back on those times really hit me hard.

My favorite character has got to be Albert, he had a determination that shone and after years of hiding and being alone was ready to fully embrace life. I also loved the young George. I could vividly imagine his flamboyant ways, singing, and dancing when the two met at the bunker.

The story kept me enthralled and I just loved the details and description of Albert’s life, the way he became more open about himself, the sadness of his past but the happiness he found in his new friends Nicole and Edith, along with his work colleagues.

This was a definite page-turner as I couldn’t get enough of Albert. I also found it infuriating and so sad reading how narrow-minded some people were in the past and glad that things have improved from the way they were, although we still have a long way to go in the fight for full acceptance from everyone.

The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is a love story and a brilliantly written one too, well done Matt Cain. It felt uplifting and heart-warming. It was beautiful to watch Albert as he stopped hiding his sexuality from people and embraced it. I will certainly be recommending this book to all my family and friends.