It’s obvious that hitherto unknown writer Virginia Evans, whose 9th work of fiction, The Correspondent, came out late last year, is unknown no more. Gathering accolades for Best Novel from numerous sources in this country and abroad, being the number-one choice of book clubs, it seems everywhere, and giving informative, relaxed, humorous interviews in person and online, Evans has made it after numerous rejections. In fact, she admits she queried over 700 agents. In a heartening talk before an audience at a Connecticut library not too long ago, Evans acknowledged she was about to throw in the towel and apply to law school when The Correspondent was finally accepted for publication. And she is confident enough to add that the book, despite its ensuing triumph, isn’t even the favorite of her novels.
The Correspondent is a clever, beautifully written account of the life of an older woman told through letters. Sybil Van Antwerp is a cranky, funny, independent, long-divorced mother, a former well-regarded lawyer, who was adopted when she was 14 months old and now has two children of her own. She had three, but her middle child, a young boy, died long ago.
A septuagenarian, living alone in Annapolis, Maryland, when the book begins, Sybil has an incurable eye disease that will render her blind. While she can, however, she writes to just about everyone. Inventing such a character was quite a choice for now 39-year-old Virginia Evans, who says the story was inspired by no one in particular, though she had been deeply moved by the death of a child of one of her friends. What really stands out, though, is the book’s structure as a series of letters that begins in June 2012 and ends ten years later.
Evans references the influence of 84 Charring Cross Road, a wonderful real-life epistolary memoir by American writer Helene Hanff published in 1970, about her 20-year correspondence – and deepening friendship -with a London bookseller. But what Evans creates in The Correspondent is original – a fictional series of longhand exchanges, written on special writing paper to family, strangers, friends, youngsters, neighbors – even if they live across the street -- editors, diplomats, teachers, lawmakers, famous authors. The exchanges between her and a consumer representative at a DNA genealogy testing company are hilarious. Many correspondents also include real-life authors, among them Ann Patchett, Joan Didion, Kazuo Ishiguro, C.S. Lewis, Larry McMurtry – and Evans says she asked a lawyer to be sure she was on solid legal ground.
Only on occasion are there emails which Evans presents in a different font. Slowly, Sybil acknowledges the power of the pen to control a narrative but also to hide or forestall what direct conversation might reveal. Despite or because of her bluntness, however, she’s an admirable, humane character, and there’s no doubt of her belief that “reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world.”
The letters also include, mysteriously, a long continuing letter which is never sent, but at the end explains the “long grief” that has governed Sybil’s life. In her letter to McMurtry about Lonesome Dove- “miraculous and mundane” -which she re-read and tells him was even more moved the second time around. She writes that the book touched something deep in her. As her own writing in Evans’ book will move you.
