The Correspondent

Sept 10, 2026:  I'm at the 80% mark of The Corresondent a book about Sybil Van Antwerp a septuagenarian who has lived a life writing letters.  The book is itselef a epistolary novel which reinforces this point about her life.  A life which is contemporaneously lived with mine save for about 15 years.  At this point in the novel, we are not left with much plot suspense.  Slyvia has two love interests, Mick, a fun loving Texan and Theodore a Holocaust survivor Maryland neighbor.  We have found that her life has been dominated by the loss of her son Gilbert when he was eight under circumstances that are hinted at as being her fault.  Her ex husban dDaan has recently died of cancer - the Emperor of all Maladies - and she doesn't go to his funeral in Belgium.  She is going progressively blind which gives her a short leash on what remains of her life as a writer (although we ware fast approaching the technology that will supercede this limitation.  She was adopted and thru a correspondence with Basam, the customer service rep at a Ancestory.com type company finds her half sister in England.  As a side note her correspondence with Basam causes him to be fired however she is making up for it by getting him some interviews for a job more in line with his technical backgorund than being a Uber delivery driver.  We also had some drama with her being stalked by a young man whose father she was part of incarcerating for a crime.  She finds him and writes to him and it seems that they have made up.  Another story line centers around Harry a troubled genuis college kid who has ended up living with her.  His father was on of her clerks in her law career.   

I'll guess that the story will conclude with Sybil revealing she was guilty of some major reason for her son's death and that the story will end in some tragedy befalling her after she has come to grips and revealed the extent of her involvement....  Stay tuned for that after I finish...   

As with all my reviews a bit of personal introspection.  Of course there is the contemporaneous element of living at the same time and place.  However, more than that there is that shoebox full of letters that I keep from when I had a part long distance relationship with a woman who I went out with for 4 years.  At various points we were separated and the relationship was sustained by postcards and long form handwritten letters often written in those Blue Par Avion thin AirMail envelopes.  We didn't have fance stationery, just lined looseleaf paper mostly.  I haven't gone back and looked at those letters in some time, I think I still have them, having survived other relationships, and while I am tempted to go back and look, I don't think it would be particularly as relevant now in the autumn of my life but still in the spring time of my kids.  Maybe, when I'm older and I am further into winter might be a good time to go back and re-visit that time.  The book for all its faults did bring that time back and for that maybe upon seeing this review, it will lead me to that postbox and that time in my life.  

Finished the book and you will have to guess whether or not my guess was correct...