Many readers hesitate to read a novel written in epistolary format, but with Virginia Evans’ remarkably capable writing, her debut novel, “The Correspondent,” is not only extremely emotionally resonant, its impact on readers is to have us contemplate and re-evaluate our lives: our regrets, our accomplishments, our achievements, and our failings. Just as the main character, Sybil Van Antwerp, keeps certain favorite books to read and reread, this is one volume that readers will be inclined to keep on their bookshelves, to visit again and again.

When we first meet Sybil, she has just turned seventy-three, and we read a letter she has written to her brother, Felix, thanking him for his birthday card, fountain pen, and a book. As we continue to read Sybil’s correspondence, letter after letter, we see how prescient the inclusion of those items is in the first line of the first letter that Evans shares in this novel. For Sybil, writing letters has been a part of her life for most of her life. It’s how she makes sense of the world around her and it’s also how she communicates best. She also loves to read, and many of her letters are to authors whose books she wants to comment on. Surprisingly, many of the authors respond, and at least one has formed a friendship with Sybil.

We learn about Sybil’s life through the letters she writes and the letters she receives. Often, she must join the 21st Century and send and receive emails, but her preference is definitely writing longhand letters to those she loves and those she does not, handwritten letters etched on a particular stationary she orders from England because it’s the best she’s found. Each letter is clearly marked with the recipient’s address and the date, including the emails, so we see the chronological progression.

There is one mystery — a letter that Sybil continues to write but not send, to an unknown recipient. Those pages, unlike the proper letters, have no salutations, no address, just the date on which the letter continues. It’s obvious that these mystery pages are written in a different style, more relaxed, more direct. We know that Sybil is writing to someone with whom she feels a closeness, but we do not have any idea who that might be until we learn more about Sybil and her sometimes tragic past.

I was especially touched by Sybil’s relationship with the young son of a good friend. He is a boy who was “different” and didn’t fit in, yet with Sybil, he felt at home. She provided him space, unconditional love, routine, and shared his love of books. She changed his life; maybe she saved his life.

One of the beautiful thoughts that Evans articulates through Sybil’s letters is the concept of seasons in our lives. Sybil rails at people, for example when talking about grief or a new baby, who say, “oh, this is only a season.” Meaning, Sybil says, that “the season will change eventually to something sunnier.” Sybil doesn’t agree. While seasons repeat yearly, in measured pace, our lives don’t. Sybil’s thought is that we get one round of seasons, beginning with childhood being the spring of our lives. This is definitely a topic that would make great fodder for a book club.

There is a beautiful symmetry to the letters Sybil pens. When she describes, in her letter to Joan Didion at the beginning of the novel, her thoughts about seasons and life, she describes it as a long, lonesome walk. And while sometimes we have someone to walk with, and sometimes we find a warm welcoming house, Sybil believes that the stretches of life lived alone on “the high, wind-blown road” are what the majority of her life has been. And at the end of the book, when Sybil writes those same words but with a different intent, it’s really lovely because we can see that Sybil has, in a sense, come full circle.

There are too many beautiful instances of Sybil’s life and her thoughtful commentary on life in general seen through her correspondence to share here, but be assured that reading this epistolary novel will grip you emotionally and stay with you long after you read the final letter. At the end, I believe Sybil has come to terms with her huge regrets, and her life is content.

And isn’t that the best we can hope for? To know, at the end, that we did our best, faulty though that “best” might have been. This is truly a brilliant debut novel, and it’s not surprising that it’s been hailed as “a cause for celebration” by Ann Patchett and is a New York Times bestseller. It’s a novel that can be savored in private, but also perfectly suited for debate and discussion in a book club. What a conversation they will have!

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.