The Correspondent
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4.4 • 52 Ratings
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
Brought to you by Penguin.
In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word.
But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she’s led becomes apparent. Fixing her difficult relationship with her children. Taking a final chance at romance. Atoning for an old legal case which has come back to haunt her. And finally, reckoning with a devastating loss that she has spent the last thirty years holding close to her chest.
'Subtly told and finely made, The Correspondent is a portrait of a small life expanding' ANN PATCHETT
'The superbly talented Virginia Evans has written a novel of connection and daring' - ADRIANA TRIGANI, bestselling author of The Good Left Undone
'I was wowed by this deliciously brilliant book! Thank you, Virginia Evans, for a life beautifully told in letters, for creating a character whose mind struggles with her heart in a most intriguing, sympathetic, witty, and binge-worthy way' - Elinor Lipman, author of MS DEMEANOR
© Virginia Evans 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025
Customer Reviews
Dear Virginia Evans,
I should tell you straight up, that I cried on my bicycle. Not a cute drizzle tear. Nah. Full crying, moving cycling, vintage sunglasses doing heavy lifting. I thought to share, given book is about people trying to communicate something important to someone who might finally understand.
Consider this my attempt. Here we go.
I really didn’t like Sybil. I suspect you knew some of your readers wouldn’t. But then, something shifted. Her thorny flaws and hedged barricades stopped being obstacles and started being architecture.
Load-bearing. By halfway through I didn’t just understand her, no… I wanted to be her in about 30 years from now. Which I did not see coming, and I hope it’s a compliment to your paper woman’s wreckage.
The way your storylines find each other. Super! The threads I forgot I was holding turning out to have been eating away at me. You make it looks effortless and surely this absolutely isn’t.
But what I really want to tell you, the reason I’m writing this “letter” that you’ll probably never read, is that some silences in your book were louder than conversations I haven’t been able to have in real life. About carrying something with nowhere to put it down. About forgiving yourself for being a human with flaws, slowly, badly, repeatedly.
I finished listening to your book wanting to write again.
So here I am, writing.
Thank you for that.
Elaine.