The Correspondent

By

Virginia Evans

One of my best recent reads was The Correspondent, a debut novel by Virginia Evans that kept me company in the final weeks of 2025. A rare epistolary novel in this age of short texts and voice notes; the author (and editor, I assume) has done a fantastic job of composing the portrait of a long life through letters and occasional emails. 

Sybil Van Antwerp, the protagonist, owns her little house in Annapolis, which offers a view of the river and sits down at her desk each morning to write letters. She writes to a whole host of characters who were and are important to her. To her brother who lives in France and her best friend who lives in Connecticut, she pours out her true feelings. She writes to newspapers, to the head of a local university campus about important topics and also to authors like Joan Didion and Ann Patchett to let them know her opinion on their books.

As we progress through the series of letters, written by her and to her, we are tasked with piecing together more than seven decades of Sybils’s life. An adopted child, a retired lawyer, mother to her children, divorced from her husband, she has lived an interesting life. Yet, she is not done. She is an avid reader, an active member of the garden club, is interested in auditing a course at the local university, and lives alone and independently, harboring secrets of her past as well as her recent health diagnosis from her adult son and daughter.

At times she appears selfish, stubborn and highly opinionated, yet she befriends the teenage son of a former colleague and understands him far better than the boy’s own family, offering him shelter and solace as he tries to fit in. Even as her old-fashioned penchant for communicating via hand-written letters is occasionally substituted by emails, her way of making inroads into what seem intractable problems as well as connecting with strangers stays intact.

The story moves between present time and a difficult past through recollections of the many highs and lows that any long life inevitably accrues. She is unsparing in her words, whether to friends or family or strangers, but also to herself. Judging her behaviors through the long lens of time where some details stay ever sharp even though her eyesight begins to deteriorate, she holds herself accountable for her shortcomings and past mistakes. 

As technology evolves over the years that this book covers, new threads unfold, new relationships develop and the last phase of her life brings new joys and reconciliation. 

The audiobook, narrated by multiple characters, was a sheer joy. It felt as if I was eavesdropping on the private lives of people as they read their letters and left me to form my own conclusions about life, choices and redemption.

My opinion: An absolute delight of a book about reading, writing, living – what’s not to love. It draws you in and makes you think about how you would like to live out your twilight years.