Book Review - "The Correspondent" by Virginia Evans

February has been a brutal month.  The northeastern part of the country, including Pittsburgh, has been hit with frigid temperatures and way above normal amounts of snowfall, the leadership of our federal government continues to take us deeper and deeper into the proverbial shitter, and here in The Grandstand, I have made eight posts this month and seven of them have been Absent Friends posts extolling the lives of nine significant people that we have lost this month. 

So, in what may well be my final post of the month, let me offer you a bright spot with a Four Star reading recommendation.

This novel currently sits in the #1 spot on the New York Times best sellers list.  It was brought to my attention by my pal Dan last year.  He read it on a neighbor's recommendation and said it was the best book that he had read last year.  Linda bought it for herself, but before she could read it, I picked it up myself and, as the cliche goes, I could not put it down.

The novel tells the story of Sybil Stone Van Antwerp, a retired attorney, divorced, a mother and a grandmother, who lives in Annapolis, MD and spends her days reading, tending to her gardens, and writing letters.  Old fashioned, handwritten letters and notes to her children, her brother, her sister-in-law, to just about anyone in her life, including customer service representatives of companies with whom she deals.  And there is one letter that Sybil writes throughout the book that she never finishes and never gets sent.  What is that all about?

The novel is written purely in the form of the correspondence both sent and received by Sybil over the course of ten years, 2012-2022.  It is certainly a different way to tell a story, but through this, we learn all about Sybil's life, about her parents, siblings, marriage, children and in-laws.  We also learn about one particular court case in which she was involved that is now coming back to her in a disturbing way.  Also, about a Christmas gift that her brother gave her that ends up having a remarkable affect on her life in these years covered by the book.

As I said, the whole structure of the novel and the story that it told was fascinating to me, and I polished it off in just a couple of sittings.  I highly recommend it.

Four Stars from The Grandstander.

In reading more about the book after I finished it was interesting as well.  "The Correspondent" is Virginia Evans' first published novel.   It received little pre-publication hype or promotion from the publisher.  It was not a book club selection by Oprah, Reese, or Jenna.  It seems that this became a hit in an organic and old fashioned way.  Someone bought it and read it, and told two other people about it.  Those people told two more and so on and BOOM!! A best seller was born.

Virginia Evans and her best seller