The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent - 5*
Virginia Evans

This book is a collection of letters from and to an 87-year-old woman, Sybil Van Antwerp. I was surprised that a good story, with strong characters, suspense, and a plot flow, could emerge from a bunch of letters.

I was quite caught up in the story and did not mark passages to consider quoting later, the way I usually do. Here’s one I marked, which was in a letter from Sybil’s ex-husband to her:

Now that I’m dying it seems much simpler than it ever did before. Living, I mean. There is no parallel universe. There is no “what could have been if only.” In some ways this gives me a great deal of peace. In other ways it is bitter. How cruel life is only this long.

That is especially interesting to me right now because I just finished another book, The Midnight Library, which is all about those parallel universes, the “what could have been if only.” This book, The Correspondent, has a tragedy at its core. You don’t learn the details until near the end. You do realize the tragedy is that Sybil and Daan’s son, named Gilbert, drowns when he is 12. You see that this event tears their marriage apart and is still causing anger, hurt, and brokenness in Sybil’s family (two other children, her grandchildren, her brother, Daan’s second wife) and friends.

The tragedy and not knowing the details makes the story a kind of mystery. Also, besides all the letters to and from people, there are snippets of one letter, which must be huge, that begin with “cont. __a date__, previous pages UNSENT.” Those snippets are mostly news, where Sybil tells this unknown, potential recipient what is going on in her life. Another mystery is Sybil’s birth family. She and her brother were adopted. Sybil never had the urge to find her birth family but she ends up almost accidentally finding them through the DNA testing now available.

The collection also contains several letters Sybil sent to authors. Sometimes they answer, including Joan Didion. Those are really interesting to read.

Sybil is the kind of woman I like. I like women who bravely and “baldly”—plainly—speak their minds. A woman I worked with, the only female owner with 3 other male owners of the company, was that kind of woman. Sometimes when she was telling me about a discussion with the other owners, she would say, “So, I told the boys…” Loved that! Another woman on a podcast I listen to gives us her honest opinion, and she is from Mississippi, so she shares her wisdom with a Southern accent, making it even more delicious. Sybil is in Annapolis, Maryland. In my imagination, I heard an East Coast accent in her words.

I wish I had more passages to quote because it might help you have a better idea of what makes the book so good. If you have any inclination at all, I encourage you to read it.