Sybil Van Antwerp led an eventful life until she became almost a recluse. She passed the bar when law was not a career for women and was lucky to partner with an older lawyer whom she greatly respected. When his career progressed and he became a judge, she clerked for him and they were a great team. She also married a Belgium native and had three children, one who died at the age of 8 in a swimming accident. She never recovered from his death and started pushing the people she loved away. Her husband left her, she seldom saw her son and never visited her daughter who lived with her family in England. Her next door neighbor would always bring her roses from his garden for which she would write a brief thank you note, but never invite him in.
When Sybil was fourteen months old, her mother put her up for adoption, an unusual age for a woman to give away her child. Her adoptive parents were kind and loving towards her, making her happy when they also adopted another child who became her little brother. Her son was always curious about his mother's background, and gave her a DNA kit for Christmas, which she wasn't happy about. Eventually she sent a sample in and found that she had a half-sister in Scotland. Hoping to stop this match from impacting anyone related to her, she contacted the company to shut the information down, but was unsuccessful. Her half-sister was informed of the match but didn't contact her-that made her curious, and she started digging for information, aided by a friend's son. Her life was starting to get more complicated than she bargained for, especially because a genetic condition was causing her to go blind-her vision was dimming and she knew her time in the visual world was getting short. Will she have the patience and strength to right the wrongs she has caused her family and others, and emerge from her self-induced cocoon into the messy world of reality?
The Correspondent is an epistolary novel, one that is told solely in letters. Sybil has a very precise writing routine; English stationery, certain pens, two days a week, 2 hours a day, wrap up on Saturday if needed. She sees hand-written letters as a legacy, to pass down to her grandchildren and in that way, keeping her memory alive. She writes to her family, to her pen-pal who became her best friend, to authors she appreciates, and all of her dealings with others, keeping her in the world but only through words. But as the novel progresses, the reader can see her quiet life unwind into a major crisis, as she finally has to deal with things in her past.
This book has been compared to Elizabeth's Strout's Olive Kitteridge novels and I can see why. It has the quiet and calm manner that Strout uses to tell her stories, that seem insignificant until you get wrapped up in them. The Correspondent has that insular quality, but Evans knows how to slowly ramp up Sybil's drama to a boiling point, causing the reader to wonder how she will be able to cope. An amazing read-it may bring corresponding with paper and pen a thing again.
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
April 29, 2025
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