Rugaroo

Book excerpt: Canceled with Blood: A Post Office Massacre is indeed fiction, but the author, Kerry Deminski, spent 35 years of his life working as a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service. The characters and events depicted are so true to life that you are immediately hooked and swept right along with them. The author pulls no punches in this portrayal of workplace violence, its causative factors, and its aftermath. Postal managers, clerks and letter carriers are defined with all of their praiseworthy attributes as well as their disturbing flaws. But this work is so much more than an insight into the heartbreaking incidents of violence that have marred the record of an institution that touches the lives of virtually every American on a daily basis. You will share the sorrow of two young women who have been shunned by their parents for choices they have made. You will empathize with the anguish of a letter carrier still attempting to deal with the post-traumatic stress of fighting the war in Vietnam. You will meet a postal supervisor who will do whatever he can to see that his letter carriers get a fair shake, as well as a supervisor who will stop at nothing to make a reputation for himself in the USPS. These, and the many other characters that populate this novel, are masterfully woven into intricate situations and relationships, both on the job and in their private lives. After reading this compelling work, you will never again be able to think of any postal employee as a dull, plodding public servant who does not enjoy a rich, complex and rewarding existence.