The Correspondent

by Virginia Evans ★★★★★

It's easy to ruin a non-traditional approach to a novel. What seems like a good idea on paper can struggle to find its footing when executed, and while a novel premise might get readers to begin a book, the leash is short (at least with me) if the innovative approach fails to deliver quickly. As such, a novel told solely through correspondence—letters, primarily, but also the occasional email—between an aging woman and a myriad of people had me approaching it with a skeptical eye.

But it works—it really, really works—and author Virginia Evans' unique approach to telling the story of Sybil Van Antwerp allowed the character's voice to shine through fully, with all its brashness and vulnerability ultimately laid bare.

When the novel opens, it is 2012, and our protagonist is seventy-two years old, retired from a long and distinguished career in law, once married but now divorced, acquaintances with a small group of local women but friends with only a few. The central focus of her life, since the age of nine, is letter-writing.

"My letters have been far more meaningful to me than anything I did with the law. The letters are the mainstay of my life, where I was only practicing law for thirty years or so. The clerkship was my job; the letters amount to who I am. I haven’t the foggiest idea how many I’ve written. I certainly didn’t keep track along the way, and I’ve never gone back to count the ones I’ve received. More than a thousand, I guess. I have written letters since I was a child. I wrote to the odd author or teacher, cousins I rarely saw. I wrote to the local fire chief, Harry Truman, people like that. I had a pen pal, she was a friend who lived down the street from me and then she moved away in high school, and we are still pen pals writing every month or six weeks, give or take, for sixty years."

We quickly come to learn many things about Sybil. She is intelligent and articulate, precise with her language, and she writes with a hint of formality uncommon in most modern correspondence. She's strong in her convictions—exceedingly and stubbornly so—but she's also warm, and curious, and committed to her craft. She has an unlisted phone number, but a listed address, because she would much prefer to interact with people through the written word than through conversation. She has a curious neighbor with whom she exchanges the occasional terse thank you card when he does something nice for her but rarely exchanges a word. She lives with limited direct human contact, intentionally so, but seems fully content to interact through her letters.

Early on, we also come to realize that she harbors some deep-seated sadness, most acutely from the death of her son at age 8, nearly 40 years prior. "Gilbert never left me, and the circumstances of his death have never for one day diminished, and as I age it feels so strange that the majority of people with whom I come in contact don't have the slightest inkling that he ever lived." She also has regrets over decisions she made through the course of her law career. Those things cocoon her in self-inflicted isolation, restricting her relationships by choice mostly to words on a page. Her existence feels lonely, but her letters are her connection. They are her legacy.

"Imagine all that you have said to another, all the commentary you have exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattle sent quickly, mindlessly over e-mail, messages typed into your cellular phone, and really, the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life, relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives; but all of that is gone. Vanished!

...And yet, if one has committed oneself to the page, the tragedy I’ve just laid out will not apply. Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?"

Because every interaction in the book is documented through a letter, either one written or received by Sybil, we develop an intensely deep understanding of this character. The book spans the emotional spectrum, from tragic to comedic, and where one might think the schtick of letter after letter might get old, it never does. Sybil is entertaining from the start, but significantly more so as you get to know her, and as she continues to live out her twilight years, we see her start to make peace with the demons that have led to her secluded existence. It seems surprising that a character could complete a full arc through only glimpses into her correspondence, but she does, and it's wonderfully executed.

Like with The Names, it's fairly shocking to realize this is author Virginia Evans' debut, and perhaps even more surprising that she managed to pull off such an interesting concept novel. The writing is excellent, and Evans delivers multiple subplots that keep readers entertained and anxious to learn additional details or the destiny of those involved. As such, the letters become simply a device to relay a dozen or so interconnected storylines, all of which revolve in some way around Sybil. It's beautifully executed and a glorious character study. It's also a love letter to writing, and the power of capturing a thought perfectly and precisely. Evans honors that concept again and again with an endless array of memorable nuggets, making The Correspondent easily among my favorite books that I read this year.

Lastly, a plug for the audiobook. Maggi-Meg Reed is tremendous as Sybil, and she is joined by a cast of more than a dozen additional voice actors who bring the diverse set of characters fully to life. The performances are differentiating, and they make a great novel into something even better. Highly, highly recommended!