Review: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

I am a huge sucker for epistolary novels under any circumstances. I have written letters off and on my whole life to friends and to pen pals I have never met, and likely will never meet. Finding something personal in the mail, as opposed to bills and junk mail, is always a thrill. So when you combine that thrilling feeling with the slightly illicit feeling of reading someone else's letters as you do in an epistolary novel, it almost guarantees a good reading experience. Virginia Evans' novel, The Correspondent, was a delightfully good reading experience.

Slightly different than other novels in letters, this tells the entire story through the letters of Sybil Van Antwerp without supplying the reader almost any of the replies (with just a couple of notable exceptions). The reader learns who Sybil is, about her relationships, what she is most proud of, what she is most ashamed by, the way her life spun out of control only to be wrested back with determination and steel, and the sorrow and guilt she feels for something that happpened a life time ago. Sybil's accomplishments were many and her correspondence impressive. The people with whom she communicates, including contemporary authors, famous people (although we are only told of these letters), her family and friends, a thoughtful neighbor, the Dean of a local college, and more show different facets of the complex character that is Sybil. This is a quiet novel, very much character driven, rich and rewarding.