The titular theme of the novel runs throughout the book, from the very first page to the very last. The Captain's explicit raison d'être is to deliver messages, tales, and news from around the world to isolated communities in Texas. As a teenager, he discovers the importance of being a messenger during wartime, stating that “written information was what mattered in this world” (22). The recognition and love of written information motivates him after the war to open his own printing press. Even with the subsequent loss of his press, caused by the Civil War, it doesn’t keep him from continuing his life's mission of spreading and delivering messages.

The importance of news is not solely relegated to the Captain, however. The very fact that he can make money reading to people illustrates their desire for information and stories. It has a calming and healing effect on them: "the listeners would for a small space of time drift away into a healing place like curative waters" (30). Even though there are many positive aspects to the power of the written word, there are also negative ones, ones of which the Captain is very aware, which is portrayed in the propagandistic literature supplied by Governor Davis and his state journal.