Book Blurb:
Throughout her life Sybil Van Antwerp has used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings around half past ten Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has. A mother, grandmother, wife, divorcée, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.
My Review: 4.75 stars
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is an absolute stunner of a novel that examines aging, grief, hope, regret and forgiveness. I’ve been recommending this book to anyone and everyone who will listen to me go gaga over it.
The main character, Sybil Van Antwerp is in her seventies and uses the art of letter writing as a way to cope, connect, and to construct meaning of her life. While she corresponds back and forth to everyone: authors, heads of university, neighbors, family, clubs and more, there is also one continuous letter she writes but never sends. Sybil is feisty, opinionated, often hilarious in her stance, incredibly well read and hiding from her family that she is losing her eyesight.
This book stole my heart. It was a fresh perspective on a life, love and companionship. It’s an ode to mistakes made and how to forgive yourself. The minor characters – those she wrote to that became meaningful people in her life were incredible. There wasn’t a thing in this book that I didn’t adore. This is must read and was absolutely brilliant on audio.
Quotes I liked:
I guess there’s no bottom to a person, but I feel you have left fewer stones unturned than anyone else who’s ever passed through, and it’s taken me some time to recognize how knowing you has been like coming in from the cold, lonely road to find a warm fire and a table laid, so thank you for that, Theodore.”
“You are right about what you said—we are thirty in our hearts, before all the disappointment, all the ways it turned out to be so much more painful than we thought it would be, but then again, it has also been magic.
“The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible. Our small dose felt as large as the sun, didn’t it?”
