I can’t recommend Virginia Evans’ novel, The Correspondent, highly enough. If you like epistolary novels with a depth of character, meet Sybil Van Antwerp.
Sybil is retired from practicing law. She’s divorced, a mother and grandmother who lives in Annapolis, Maryland. And, she writes letters, to friends, relatives, and authors who move her. She’s a reader who writes to Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, Diana Gabaldon, and Larry McMurtry. In 2012, she’s seventy-three. Her letters allow her the opportunity to explore her friendships, her own history. But, it will still be a few years before Sybil can confront her own past, and the impact some of her actions had on others.
Although her son, Bruce, lives nearby and visits, Sybil’s relationship with her daughter, Fiona, is fraught. Fiona lives in London, and both women have kept secrets from each other. They haven’t been close for years. When Sybil and her husband divorced, Fiona chose to move to Belgium with her father. Despite her writing habits, Sybil and Fiona can’t communicate.
As we see over the years, Sybil does try to open herself up to others, including her sister-in-law, a young boy, the troubled son of a former colleague, and even a foreigner working in tech for a website. But, it takes years for Sybil to open up and be truthful with herself.
The Correspondent is really a novel about life, about aging, illness, and how we end up where we do. We get to know Sybil, but wonder about the unfinished letter she writes for years, and never sends. There are family problems, health issues, death. There are men in Sybil’s life, even as she reaches seventy-eight, a retired lawyer, and the neighbor. Evans does an excellent job developing them and their characters, although we see them through Sybil’s eyes. Sybil also reveals the sexism that influenced her career in the law, and the sexism that still plays a part in academia.
I don’t know how to summarize this beautiful story. At it’s heart, it’s about life, the impact we have on others. It’s about changing relationships, and changes in ourselves. It’s a beautiful novel.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Crown, 2025. ISBN 9780593798430 (hardcover), 304p.
FTC Full Disclosure – I read a galley from the publisher through NetGalley, with no promise of a positive review.
