The Correspondent

An unparalleled work that I couldn’t put down. The story is told entirely in letters written and received. It’s magnificent. There’s only one other book that I can think of that comes close to this challenging stylistic choice, Re: Colonised Planet 5: Shikasta, by Doris Lessing.

‍

Through letters and email we work through health challenges, fraught familial relationships, courtship, disappointment, lovely interactions with strangers, and death. It pulls the heartstrings in so many directions.

‍

When I was young, by writing letters I found a framework that made living easier, and that has never changed. However, I do wonder if by conducting the most intimate relationships of my life in correspondence, I have kept, since I was a child, a distance between myself and others.

‍

The author does such a great job of adding tension, releasing tension, foreshadowing, and resolving things with only well-written letters. She also brilliantly uses different tones and writing styles to reflect different characters and even the subtle differences between the way people write letters vs. the writing of email.

‍

This is intellectually and emotionally evocative, nuanced, clever and extremely well-written. Ms. Evans is able to say in one well-worded sentence things that would take most people a paragraph.

‍

You know, I imagine what it would be like if you were here. I’ve taken your personality, all that I knew of it before you were gone, and stretched it out as far as I am able. It’s like trying to press out pastry dough as thin as possible without tearing it. I stretch you out to now, imagining you as a fifty-four-year-old man.

‍

The stories that are woven through the book have so many unique colors, and I appreciated that while there is a definite arc (indeed many arcs) there isn’t a villain nor does the protagonist need to save the world against all odds. Instead, it’s the story of a woman coming to grips with decisions she made earlier in her life, and grappling with love, forgiveness, aging and death.

‍

A beautiful novel. Highly recommended.

‍