ā
ā
ā
ā
ā
5
Successful Epistolary Novel
Format: Kindle
When we first meet Sybil Van Antwerp, age 73, she is retired from law and spends a lot of time writing letters and emails. She also reads a lot and is interested in what her correspondents are reading. She has children and grandchildren, but she lives alone in Annapolis, Maryland, and doesnāt see her family very often. During the course of reading her correspondence, we very gradually learn about Sybilāher history and her present troubles. She is a complicated character and several times in reading The Correspondent I paused to ask myself what I thought of Sybilādid I like her? What about her kept me from the immediate response a reader usually has about the main character of a book? Even at the end of the book, I am still ambivalent about Sybil, but I certainly understand her much better.
Sybil, herself, and the book have so many layers. There is true depth to the story. My book club took deep dives into it over a period of three weeks, and I donāt think we have sampled all the topics represented in this book. It is a wonderful novel for stimulating meaningful discussion.
Neurodivergence is not called out or named, but it comes to mind in thinking about Harry, a child who is the son of a judge, a former colleague of Sybil. The boy doesnāt quite fit in socially with his peers, but he is brilliant. Sybil makes the perfect āpen palā for Harry because they have some of the same characteristics. As a child she was punished for āinsolence and rudeness,ā but her parents were just trying to mold her into a polite young lady as expected by society. She was blunt and didnāt have many friends.
There are so many other issues worthy of discussion, but they would most certainly bring up spoilers. I wonāt do that to you. Readers should have the opportunity to see the story gradually emerge from the letters, including a continuing one that the reader doesnāt know to whom Sybil is writing. Sybil sets the word āstoneā for secrets, and there are stones in this book making it a puzzle, a mystery of sortsāfor the reader.
As a reviewer, I tend to go quickly from one book to the next as soon as I have composed and published my thoughts. Characters in various books can even blend together. This is not the case with The Correspondent. The characters in this book, especially Sybil, have stayed with me and come to mind frequently as I go through my day. Virginia Evans has created a fictional world with impact. Just as Sybil needed time (years in her case) to process the events of her life, the reader will need time to process them and their effects on Sybil as well.
WAS THIS REVIEW HELPFUL?YesReportShare
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2026
