From the publisher:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Discover the word-of-mouth hit hailed by Ann Patchett as “A cause for celebration”—an intimate novel about the transformative power of the written word and the beauty of slowing down to reconnect with the people we love.
“The Correspondent is this year’s breakout novel no one saw coming.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life 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, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very 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 that 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.
Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE, THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, AND THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Elle, Christian Science Monitor, She Reads
Well. Where to start. A letter!
Dear reader,
This remarkable debut novel came out last year, and I kept putting it off until I forgot about it entirely. My mistake — don’t make the same one. This is a book not to be missed, and now that I’ve finally read it, I know I’ll never forget it.
It’s an epistolary novel — a novel told entirely through letters. I love this format, though I know not everyone does. Set aside any reservations and give it a chance. One of my all-time favorite books is also epistolary: Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger. If you haven’t read it, find a copy and thank me later. I read it more than twenty years ago and could still discuss it in detail today — which, given how much my memory has faded and how many books I’ve consumed in the interim, says everything.
But I digress.
Our heroine/letter writer is Sybil Van Antwerp, a septuagenarian from Maryland who has spent her life writing letters. She writes to her brother in France, her best friend in Connecticut, and her children, who rarely write back. She corresponds with the troubled but brilliant young son of a judge who is a family friend, and with authors you may recognize — Ann Patchett (who blurbed this book) and Joan Didion, among others. We come to know everyone in Sybil’s world through her letters and the ones she receives.
Through those letters, we learn that Sybil lost a child when he was very young, a loss that shaped the entire course of her life. We learn about her divorce, her career in law, and the way she sees the world and the people in it. Once someone enters her orbit, they become a friend — whether they intend to or not. We also learn, with quiet heartbreak, that Sybil has been diagnosed with a rare disease that will eventually cost her her sight. She is slowly going blind.
I particularly loved her reflections on why she writes by hand. There are some emails in the mix, but most of the correspondence is written at her desk — a form of communication that has become, if not already obsolete, then rapidly fading. (To be clear, the book itself is printed in a normal font; I only mean that the characters write by hand.) What letters do, especially in this novelist’s hands, is create an extraordinary sense of intimacy. Reading them feels like peering directly into someone’s thoughts. The reader becomes almost complicit — a quiet witness to a private world.
I loved this book. It moves quickly, as epistolary novels tend to, but it lingers long after the last page. I’ve read two books since finishing it, and I’m still thinking about Sybil — her voice, her letters, the way they made me laugh, bristle, and ache by turns. I spent the final chapters dreading the end, even as it became inevitable. It will absolutely appear on my best-of-the-year list.
One of the reasons I started this blog back in the 1990’s was because when I find a book that I love, I want everyone to read it. I hope I’ve convinced you to read it. If I have, please come back and tell me what you think.
Thanks for reading.
Warmest wishes,
Stacy
PS: I found this little review online and wished I had written it!
“I don’t say this lightly: this book is perfect. A staggering achievement of voice and character, of layered empathy and honest appraisal about all the ways we fail and recover as humans. Just so so good. I read it in a day, but will think about it for years.” Michael Smith, Goodreads
3/2026 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
THE CORRESPONDENT by Virginia Evans. Crown. (April 29, 2025). ISBN: 978-0593798430. 304p.
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