I’ve read the most brilliant book: “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans. Caveat: Don’t read if you don’t like or want to cry, because you will likely find a few teardrops crinkling the pages or dripping onto your e-reader.

In Evans’ 2025 epistolary novel, we meet Sybil Van Antwerp, who emails and writes letters to everyone imaginable, including the author Joan Didion and director George Lucas. But mostly she corresponds with her brother and her best friend, interspersed with emails to the faculty head of a local university, a man down the block who would like to date the septuagenarian, and a call center representative at a genetic testing organization. Throughout the novel, she also writes to an unknown person, tracing the path of her life. We don’t find out who it is until near the end, but it will break your heart at least a little. – Jennifer Mulson, The Gazette