The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

Amy    

fiction

Sybil’s life story is shared through letters between herself and multiple relatives, friends, acquaintances, and people she encounters for various other reasons. She’s a smart, retired divorcee, losing her vision to a hereditary disease, whose middle child had died young, and who has made many friends in her lifetime as well as some contentious relationships.

I really enjoyed Sybil and her story. Yes, this entire novel was told in letters sent and received—both through postal mail and e-mail. There was also one ongoing, unsent letter to which Sybil frequently added new information. It served as a sort of diary and this was the avenue for Virginia Evans to fill in the holes that normal correspondence couldn’t divulge to the reader. Evans didn’t include every single letter but the reader could understand what communication was skipped based on the contents of the letters that were included. This helped to keep it from getting monotonous. The Correspondent was cleverly crafted. It included minor mysteries that were meant to pull the reader through. I was charmed by Sybil’s correspondence with authors as well as all the books mentioned in this novel. What fun!

Both heartwarming and heartbreaking (there were tears at the end!), I was entirely under Sybil’s spell. While not quick-paced, it was never boring. The characters were terrific. The situations were easy to picture. The answers to questions were difficult, once divulged.

I both read and listened to The Correspondent. There were positives and negatives to both options for this book: 

• Audiobook: It had a full cast of narrators voicing specific people who had written a letter. It was perfect in that regard. However, I grew impatient having to listen through each recipient’s mailing address being read out for every single letter.
• Kindle: The main advantage to reading the novel was being able to skim over all the addresses. The disadvantage was losing the voice clues that came with the audiobook about the sender of each letter. I sometimes couldn’t figure out who the letter-writer was and had to page ahead to see the signature. Whereas, in the audiobook, as I got to know all the different character voices, I knew who wrote the letter as soon as they started talking.

If I had to recommend one or the other, I’d go with the audiobook since it was really awesome having the full cast experience, even though listening to the addresses grew tedious.

Maggi-Meg Reed was the main narrator and her voice acting was spot on! Since she only had to read Sybil’s voice, I have no idea whether she has a large vocal repertoire. But she was fabulous in this role. In fact, all the minor narrators were also fabulous in their roles. As a bonus surprise to me, one of my favorite narrators, whom I haven’t listened to in years, had a short appearance and I was just thrilled to hear Steve West’s voice again. I give the whole case a very solid A. Thanks to the intelligent production team! Well done, everyone!