The Correspondent: A Novel, Virginian Evans, author; Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Rovert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, the author and more, narrators.
Sybil Van Antwerp has spent most of her life engaged in writing of some sort, be it briefs as a lawyer or in general with a multitude of letters with many purposes, some to complain or to compliment, some that were never mailed but kept simply as proof of their existence. In this way, she unburdened herself of the events of her life that either gave her great pleasure or great pain with friends, acquaintances, authors, professors, family and others, even customer service representatives. She made relationships with varied people and kept up her correspondence with religious adherence. Unfortunately, that adherence to correspondence, some of which she kept secret and referred to as “stones”, kept her from having an open discussion with those near and dear to her and brought up some unexpected consequences in her life, keeping her from enjoying it more fully. Tragedy and her unknown ancestry haunted her, especially in her older age, because perhaps she realized that time was running out.
In her mid- seventies, facing oncoming blindness and an inability to continue her correspondence which seems to have given her the entire raison d’etre for living, she begins to examine her past more fully. She becomes more open to facing the “stones” she has not explored and has instead hidden. Her writing had always absorbed her and shielded her from facing what she found threatening or unexplainable in her day to day living. It was the quintessential escape mechanism for her, the place she was free to face those who challenged her, but was also free to ignore those things she wished to ignore. Sybil is nothing, if not sometimes arrogant, in her attempt to reach out to people and voice her own opinion with impunity. Still, her reserved behavior on the outside, contrasting with her correspondent’s open behavior, has kept her aloof and alone for much of her life. She doesn’t know her neighbors and her relationship with her family has been challenging because while she wrote her feelings down on paper, she often never expressed them verbally as openly or honestly.
Watching Sybil grow, so late in life, is very heartwarming. She is suddenly open to relationships with semi-strangers, not on paper, but in person. She discovers that, although she has dismissed so many people with frivolous assessment, they are far deeper and more personable than she ever allowed. In the last years of her life, her life becomes fuller, and oddly, her “stones” are revealed, not only by her, but by others after her death. She is a complex person who has lived her life as if she was one-dimensional, but she was multi-layered, and although pretending to be distant, she really cared deeply about others. A tragedy in her life altered the trajectory of her life. When finally able to deal with that tragedy, she was able to free herself to begin really living and righting the wrongs she had committed. Her apologies were sincere and introspective. It was supremely satisfying to watch her slowly learn to appreciate those around her and what life had to offer. She admitted her mistakes, even though some were admitted in “stones”.
This is an epistolary novel of the first order. Imperative advice: Listen to this book, rather than read the print edition, because the numerous readers do a fantastic job of identifying each of the letter writers. Listening to this book is really an experience for the theater of the mind. It will come alive.