I just finished reading “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans and felt immediately moved to write about it. It’s a favourite book of mine this year, a 5-star novel!
It touched me intimately, maybe because the main character, Sybil, is about my age. She assesses her life as she reveals and reviews it through hand-written letters to family, friends, and others.
Sybil’s character is so feisty, so intelligent, so honest (in the end), so strong. She tells us all, as she faces old age and coming blindness. We live her life with her—all her regrets, all her joys, all her foibles, all her strengths, all her doubts.
I cried near the end. Not through sentimental sadness, but because of deep honest pain that finally was revealed through her letters.
Her UNSENT letters, with the final words, hit deep. It swelled up inside me, in my heart, in my gut, a wholeness only intimate, honest truth is capable of unmasking.
I need time to assimilate this book within me and then I will read it again, this time to savour the story of a wise, honest woman who is just a woman trying to live her best life. As we all are.
