J.B. Hwang’s debut novel, Mendell Station, arrives as a remarkably tender and deeply observed portrait of grief, faith crisis, and the peculiar salvation found in the most ordinary of jobs. Set against the backdrop of San Francisco in early 2020, this literary work follows Miriam Lee, a Korean-American woman whose world collapses when her best friend Esther dies suddenly, taking with it not only companionship but the very foundations of Miriam’s Christian faith.
The novel opens with devastating simplicity: Esther has fallen two stories onto train tracks at Van Ness station. This single event becomes the catalyst for everything that follows—Miriam’s loss of faith, her departure from teaching Scripture at a private Christian school, and her unexpected entry into the United States Postal Service as the pandemic begins to reshape the world around them.
The Architecture of Grief and Memory
What distinguishes Mendell Station from other grief narratives is Hwang’s sophisticated handling of memory and friendship. Rather than presenting Esther through rose-colored recollections, the author crafts a complex portrait of female friendship that includes tension, misunderstanding, and genuine love. Through a series of flashbacks, we witness Miriam and Esther’s relationship from their teenage years through their final winter together—a friendship marked by deep understanding but also by periods of strain and separation.
The novel’s structure mirrors the disorientation of grief itself. Hwang weaves between present-day mail delivery and memories of Esther, creating a narrative rhythm that feels both fragmented and cohesive. The author’s decision to include Miriam’s unsent letters to Esther throughout the book serves as both a literary device and a profound meditation on communication with the dead. These letters, which Miriam marks with “dec” (deceased) before carrying them in her postal satchel, become a haunting metaphor for undeliverable love.
The friendship between Miriam and Esther is rendered with particular authenticity. Hwang captures the specific intimacy of female friendship—the way friends can know each other’s families better than their own, the casual cruelties that can emerge from living together, and the profound understanding that transcends disagreement. Their relationship feels lived-in rather than idealized, making Esther’s absence all the more devastating.
Faith, Doubt, and the Problem of Hell
Perhaps the novel’s most compelling element is its unflinching examination of faith in crisis. Miriam’s struggle with Christianity isn’t presented as a simple loss of belief but as a theological wrestling match with the doctrine of hell. Her terror that Esther, who never believed in God, might be eternally damned becomes a consuming obsession that drives her away from both church and teaching.
Hwang, who clearly understands the intricacies of evangelical Christianity, doesn’t mock or dismiss Miriam’s former faith. Instead, she presents it as something that once provided genuine comfort and meaning. The author’s exploration of how grief can shatter not just personal beliefs but entire worldviews feels both specific to Christian experience and universally resonant. Miriam’s journey from “born again” believer to someone who can no longer pray is handled with remarkable sensitivity and psychological realism.
The theological questions the novel raises—about justice, mercy, and the nature of divine love—are never resolved in neat packages. Instead, Hwang allows these uncertainties to remain unsettled, much like grief itself. This refusal to provide easy answers strengthens rather than weakens the narrative’s emotional impact.
The Poetry of Postal Work
The novel’s title location, Mendell Station, becomes far more than a workplace setting. Hwang transforms the mundane reality of mail delivery into something approaching the sacred. Through Miriam’s eyes, we experience the physical demands of the job, the camaraderie among carriers, and the unexpected dignity found in essential work. The author’s own experience as a mail carrier during the pandemic clearly informs these passages, lending them an authenticity that elevates what could have been mere workplace description into something profound.
The immigrant community at Mendell Station provides Miriam with a new kind of belonging. Her coworkers—primarily Asian immigrants who speak multiple languages and bring their own stories of displacement and adaptation—offer a different model of community than the church she’s left behind. Resy, the Indonesian mail carrier who becomes Miriam’s mentor, emerges as a particularly well-drawn character whose warmth and wisdom provide anchoring moments throughout the novel.
Hwang’s descriptions of the work itself—the physical demands, the equipment, the routes, the weather—are rendered with such specificity that they become almost meditative. The repetitive nature of mail delivery, the focus required to sort and deliver correctly, and the simple satisfaction of completing a route all serve as forms of secular prayer for Miriam’s wounded spirit.
Pandemic as Backdrop and Metaphor
The timing of Miriam’s career change—just as COVID-19 begins to reshape American life—adds layers of meaning to her story. As San Francisco enters lockdown and she becomes designated as an “essential worker,” Miriam finds herself literally outside the safety of quarantine, moving through empty streets while delivering packages to people hiding indoors. This physical manifestation of her emotional state—being on the outside, excluded from safety and comfort—creates a powerful parallel between personal and collective crisis.
The pandemic sections of the novel avoid both sensationalism and political commentary, instead focusing on the human experience of uncertainty and the strange ways that catastrophe can reveal unexpected truths about what matters. Miriam’s work during this period becomes not just a job but a form of service that connects her to others even as it keeps her physically isolated.
Language and Style: Finding Beauty in Plainness
Hwang’s prose style mirrors her protagonist’s journey from ornate theological language toward something plainer and more direct. The writing is deceptively simple, with moments of startling beauty emerging from everyday observations. The author has a particular gift for capturing the specific details that make experience feel authentic—the weight of packages, the sound of mail slots closing, the particular exhaustion that comes from physical labor.
The novel’s pacing reflects the rhythms of postal work itself—steady, methodical, with moments of unexpected discovery. Hwang trusts her readers to find meaning in the accumulation of small moments rather than dramatic revelations, a choice that serves the story’s themes beautifully.
Minor Criticisms and Considerations
While Mendell Station succeeds admirably in most respects, there are moments where the novel’s metaphorical weight threatens to overwhelm its realistic foundation. Occasionally, the symbolic parallels between mail delivery and spiritual seeking feel slightly forced. Additionally, some readers may find the pace deliberately slow, particularly in the middle sections focused on the mechanics of postal work.
The novel’s ending, while emotionally satisfying, leaves certain practical questions about Miriam’s future unresolved. However, this ambiguity seems intentional, reflecting the open-ended nature of grief and recovery.
Literary Context and Comparisons
Mendell Station joins a growing body of literature that finds profound meaning in working-class experience. Readers familiar with the work of authors like Matthew Crawford (Shop Class as Soulcraft) or the fiction of Willa Cather will recognize similar themes about the dignity of physical labor and the spiritual dimensions of seemingly mundane work.
The novel also resonates with recent immigrant literature that explores questions of belonging and community. In its treatment of faith crisis, it shares DNA with works like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead series, though Hwang’s approach is more questioning and less resolved than Robinson’s ultimately affirming vision.
A Remarkable Debut Achievement
Mendell Station marks the arrival of a significant new voice in American literary fiction. Hwang has crafted a novel that manages to be both deeply personal and broadly resonant, finding in one woman’s crisis of faith and loss a larger meditation on work, community, and the unexpected places where healing can be found.
This is a book that trusts in the power of ordinary experience to carry extraordinary emotional weight. It suggests that sometimes the path through grief isn’t found in grand gestures or dramatic revelations, but in the simple act of showing up, day after day, to do work that matters. In Miriam’s journey from Scripture teacher to mail carrier, Hwang has found a powerful metaphor for how we remake ourselves after loss—not through dramatic transformation, but through the accumulation of small acts of service and connection.
Similar Reads Worth Exploring
“Asymmetry” by Lisa Halliday – Another debut exploring unexpected connections and the weight of ordinary moments
“Weather” by Jenny Offill – A fragmented narrative about anxiety, faith, and finding purpose in uncertain times
“Severance” by Ling Ma – A pandemic novel that finds dark humor and meaning in work and survival
“Dept. of Speculation” by Jenny Offill – Short, profound meditation on marriage, motherhood, and creative life
Mendell Station is a novel that will likely reward multiple readings, revealing new layers of meaning as readers return to its carefully constructed world. It’s a book that argues quietly but persuasively for the possibility of finding grace in the most unexpected places—including the back of a mail truck, driving through empty streets at dawn, carrying letters and packages that connect strangers to each other across the vast, complicated distances of human experience.