It
doesn't feel like I'm saying much when I state this is the best book of
the year, and it's only January. So instead, I'll say The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans is one of my favourite books that I've read in a
really, really long time. I had it on my shelf since the publisher sent
it to me last year when it was published, and then a literary agent
urged me to read it, which is always a good sign, as they read ALOT.
Then it started to pop up on 'best of 2025', which really clinched it
for me - what was I waiting for? I dove in, savoured it, and was
disappointed when it ended just shy of 300 pages. For someone who loves
'finishing' books like I do, this is really saying something!
Plot Summary
This
is an epistolary novel, meaning it's told entirely in letters; a format
I don't come across often, but typically enjoy. Most letters are
written by the protagonist Sybil Van Antwerp, a women in her early
seventies who lives alone, but has always made sense of her world
through writing. We uncover the history of her life as well as her
current situation through her letters to others as well as their
responses back to her. She's lived a life of regular ups and downs
including a family tragedy. She's now a grandmother, but struggles with
her relationship with her kids. She has some men in her life that are
clearly looking for more, but she doesn't seem all that interested in
progressing things. Her eyesight is failing, and it's a secret she isn't
telling many people, but it does emerge in her writing to a select few.
There is one set of letters that she does write but does never sends,
and it isn't revealed until later who these are meant for, although it's
not really a secret either, it's quite obvious for those who are paying
attention. It's in this unsent correspondence that we learn how she is
truly feeling and the struggles she doesn't want to bother others with.
We are introduced to Sybil when her life is quite small, preferring to
stick close to home and her beloved garden, but as the book progresses
the outside world gradually pushes its way in, and she's forced to
confront the more complicated aspects of her life that she was hoping to
avoid or ignore.
Reviewed by Anne Logan
