[2] The novel focuses on government incompetence in general; a large and luxurious post office is built in a Cape Cod town with only 800 year-round residents.
[2] The mural, painted on the ceiling by Jack Lorne, a local painter who had stolen the commission through cronyism, is titled The History and Customs of Cape Cod.
Ignoring three heavily armed apes in gas masks who belabored her from virtually every angle, Peace beamed down at a stalwart youth whose full nelson on Capital was definitely getting results...From the clam digger's left knee tottered a leering British Grenadier, and a priest hugging a mussed Red Cross nurse.
Out of the steam emerged a Model T Ford driven by a child...Myles Standish sat in a cramped position on the spare tire.Eventually postal staff misplace a key to the building and the mural is painted over after hours.
[2] Art historian Karal Ann Marling wrote:[2] Popular attitudes toward the mural renaissance were being formed and scandals over the repugnant stuff the government might smear on a wall erected with taxpayers' dollars were limited to breathless wire-service reports.In 1937, after the unveiling of Dangers of the Mail, a post office mural that attracted widespread objections, Washington's Evening Star immediately called the mural "Art at its Worst", said it had "shocked all who have seen it", accused "government doles" of "foster[ing]...radicalism in art", and accompanied its review with a recounting of the plot of Octagon House.