The Correspondent

An epistolary novel, when done well, can be a succinct and fun thing to read, but can also present challenges in giving context to a backstory without being convoluted: too much detail can kill the flow of the letters. I think Virginia Evans has avoided this because the writer of the letters, Sybil Van Antwerp, is corresponding with different people, so we slowly get a sense of Sybil. She is a no-nonsense, fiercely intelligent and steadfastly independent retired lawyer in her early seventies who maintains her privacy and uses her letter writing as a way of avoiding confrontation. Her pithy communications are never overtly rude, but the recipients will be in no doubt about her meaning.

She has regular contact with her brother, sister-in-law and Harry, the young son of a judge she knew when she was a lawyer. Harry is very bright, but an isolated child, and his father worries about him. Sybil’s relationship with Harry becomes a mutually important one. There is another unfinished, ongoing series of letters Sybil writes – but never posts – to an unnamed recipient, a mystery that the reader will probably guess at as one learns more about her life.

She writes letters to authors, neighbours, her gardening club and other recipients. One thing we find out early on is that her relationship with her two children, particularly her daughter, is distant and they have intermittent contact by email or phone. It seems her work as chief clerk to a judge came at a cost to her family life.

As old age begins to bite, Sybil realises she may have to come to terms with some of her vulnerabilities and that the eloquence of her letters is no substitute for close contact with people. I loved Sybil’s control of her life and lack of self-pity, but her later revelations and reckonings made me sad that she endured a loneliness that was masked by her stoicism and controlled by her letter writing.

The Correspondent is a terrific read with a singular main character who touches the heart of the reader.