Book Review: The Correspondent, Virginia Evans, M&J, 2025
‘Hello Rosalie,
No, everything is not alright. I cannot quite manage to move past the fact you, my best friend, the person I held dearest to myself, would betray me by hosting my own daughter, who as you very well know, I see once a year if I am lucky, and keep it from me.’
Sybil
The Correspondent is a novel full of stories told through letters written by Sybil to a range of other characters, including her best friend, Rosalie. It does what all novels do, but differently; it takes you into a deep dive into the psyche of its various characters through the fairly mundane events occurring in life.
This is not a new device. In 2017, Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows published The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was subsequently turned into a hugely entertaining and excellent film. A must-watch. And, before that, C.S.Lewis may be remembered for The Screwtape Letters, which consists of satirical letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his young, inexperienced nephew, Wormwood.
As a retired lawyer, Sybil, The Correspondent, has time to write. The book opens with a letter from Sybil to Felix, her brother, in 2012 and her final letter is dated February 12th 2020.
I particularly liked the account Sybil gives of her meeting with Melissa Genet, Dean of the University: ‘absolutely gorgeous black woman maybe forty years old with braids’
Notable recipients of her letters include Rosalie and Felix, as above, Theodore, her neighbour, Harry, a boy who is bullied, Basam, an agent at a DNA testing centre, and Melissa Genet, the Dean of a local University, who Sybil badgers into letting her sit in on some lectures. I particularly liked the account Sybil gives of her meeting with Melissa when writing to her brother, Felix:
‘Felix, she is shorter than me, I couldn’t believe it. The tiniest little woman in black slacks and a gorgeous yellow wool cardigan sized for a twelve-year-old…(she) is this tiny and absolutely gorgeous black woman maybe forty years old with braids. Wilted as a rotten peach…treated poorly…people are downright racist and sexist…’
The Correspondent is written chronologically but, as there are so many recipients – and the letters and email replies are included too – it builds slowly. And just when you think you know how it will end, like all good novels, you’re in for a surprise. I doubt anyone can see the denouement.
After the final full stop, Virginia Evans includes Acknowledgements and ends with a scriptural reference, James 1v17. So, apart from reading The Correspondent, dust off your bible and look up the verse in James, himself a letter writer.
Thoroughly recommended.