Letter writing is almost a lost art, but Evans manages to capture the importance of it in The Correspondent. Through her letters, Van Antwerp manages to engage the reader in a life well-lived, but with regrets, sadness, guilt and surprise. Sybil lives outside of Annapolis next door to a very attentive neighbor, Theodore. She is going blind and is mostly accepting of that, but still wants to be in control of her life. There are hints to her past life, e.g the death of her son, Gilbert, her divorce from Daan, and her job as a lawyer. It is through correspondence with her children Fiona and Felix, best friend, Rosalie that over the course of the book those fragments become a vivid picture of her life.
She is ousted from her garden club, maintains an email chain with a man who is a representative from a genetic testing company, harbors a teenager, the son of a colleague, who has been bullied, and tries to understand a strained relationship with her daughter. Interspersed with the actual posted and emailed correspondence are fragments of a letter that is labeled "unsent." This is the most revealing of the correspondence in that it is an admission of the regrets and actions of her life that have contributed the ongoing guilt she has felt. To the reader it was heart-wrenching.
The reader meets two men who vie for the attention of Sybil. It becomes apparent that both would like a long-term relationship with her, but she denies that prospect. The reader, on the sideline, routes for her to become involved with one of them to provide companionship and love.
One of the most interesting aspect of the novels is the inclusion at the end of most chapters what books she and her friends are reading. It was an eclectic series of titles and worthy of exploring to read. The Correspondent was a gem of book and one that is a most pleasurable read. I am glad not to have missed it.
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