Dear Ann,
I am writing to congratulate you on your most recent novel, State of Wonder, which was given to me for my birthday by my brother…
Yes, the protagonist, Sybil Van Atwerp, is referring to Ann Patchett. She goes on to say that if Ann was to ever visit Annapolis, she’d be glad to host her. Sybil’s familiar tone (which she also employs in letters to Joan Didion and Kazuo Ishiguro) is wonderfully endearing and I’d like to imagine, disarming for the receivers of those letters.
However, letters to authors are just a small part of The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. The rest of Sybil’s letters (for this is an epistolary novel) are to her brother, her neighbour, her adult children, her closest friend, the president of the gardening club and so forth. Her tone varies from warm to exasperated, and from polite to clipped, depending on the receiver (clearly stuff has gone down at the gardening club).
Sybil’s good intentions – that might be viewed as meddling – and her seemingly prickly exterior, which the reader knows is there to protect a broken heart, will draw comparisons to other favourite curmudgeonly characters in Olive Kitteridge and Ove.
But this is a story of loss… so much loss. I am loathe to reveal the specifics of Sybil’s grief, short of saying that it is layered and complex, but never in an unbelievable or extreme way. In Sybil, Evans has created a woman who has lived a full life and who has nursed her grief, heartbreaks and fears privately, the cost of which is revealed in her correspondence with those dearest to her.
The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible. Our small dose felt as large as the sun, didn’t it? And it persists.
When reading about grief, I tend to prefer memoir for its authenticity but occasionally a novel hits the mark, and The Correspondent makes the cut. I marked dozens of passages in this book – I won’t share them here because there would be spoilers, but the way Sybil reflects on some of the things that have happened in her life resonated –
These are thoughts I’ve had, but not in an urgent sense, just a little bruise I’d press on every once in a while.
When I began this book, I assumed something formulaic – it’s anything but that. Evans has spared the reader from backstory (one of my pet hates in epistolary novels because no one retells history in a letter to someone close), and moves the plot forward in leaps that make sense and that allow the reader to fill in the gaps. As a result, the story is driven by emotion. I laughed and I cried – and I highly recommend The Correspondent.
4/5
The children both contacted me – Bruce had a strawberry tart delivered from a bakery (he’ll be up next weekend to clean out my gutters anyway), and it was awful, so I threw it out.
I’m guessing she’s an older protagonist… because (alas) nobody writes letters any more…
She is and she gets very cranky when her children write her emails!
I loved this novel. Several friends and relatives also enjoyed it, and now we’re writing “real” letters to each other!
That’s wonderful!
This isn’t one that I would have automatically picked up, but you’ve changed my mind. It sounds really well done.
Sold! I’m not sure how I missed this one.
I’m awaiting this from the library. I didn’t know the protagonist lives in Annapolis (20 miles from where I grew up)! Or that she wrote letters to authors. I’m even keener now…
I don’t want to jinx it but I think you’ll love it for so many reasons.
The more I read reviews of this, the more I want to read it. Thanks.
I have been a lifelong letter writer and saw this book a while ago thinking that might be interesting. Then someone suggested it for our book club but we chose another one. Maybe next month. Otherwise I’ll get it just for myself.
Absolutely worth reading, even if your book club doesn’t agree!
What a great idea, Wad, I should have known that when my sons went to uni. In the meantime, they are all grown up and have their jobs. So, too late. LOL
@Kate: I used to write a lot of letters, now it’s mostly postcards but I gladly send you something, if you like.
I usually wait another month or two and then, if we haven’t decided on it, I go ahead and get it for myself. This one, I definitely will get. It’s ME! I still have letters from my correspondents from fifty years ago.
I write lots of letters. I guess it runs in the family. My mother wrote weekly to her mother. I still have box of letters somewhere though it would be a struggle getting through Grandma’s handwriting. When I went up to uni mum said she would only send my weekly allowance by return mail for the letters I wrote. So that was an incentive! I wonder what I said (not: drunk again, skipped class. I must have made stuff up).
Exactly! Who tells their backstory in a letter to someone they know? That spoils a lot of epistolary fiction.
I wish that I still wrote letters! In the nineties, when I had lots of friends overseas, I was a devoted letter writer (and receiver). Of the letters I received, I eventually returned them to their authors, thinking that they might like to have a record of what they were thinking and doing while overseas. As a result, I don’t really have many letters in my possession (although have kept every postcard I have been sent).
I like your mum’s strategy (it’s the sort of thing I would do to my kids!).
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