The Correspondent

What The Correspondent is about

Sybil Van Antwerp is a retired lawyer living alone in Annapolis, and she keeps in touch with the world through letters and emails. The novel is built from that correspondence, written between 2012 and 2022 to family, former colleagues and authors she admires, including Joan Didion, Larry McMurtry and Ann Patchett. Through them we come to know a woman who is divorced, who raised two children who are still living and lost a third at the age of eight, and who was adopted and cannot decide whether she wants to learn about her birth parents.

Her eyesight is slowly failing, and some of her letters are never sent, addressed to someone we are not told about. Over the years, the pages quietly assemble a life, with its regrets and its unfinished business. It suits readers who love quiet, character-driven stories and the particular intimacy of a handwritten voice.

Questions about The Correspondent

When was The Correspondent published?

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans was first published in 2025.

Was The Correspondent one of the best books of 2025?

The Correspondent ranked #4 on BookWard's Best Books of 2025 when we last measured it, in October 2026. 300 readers have shelved it on Open Library; its Wikipedia page averaged 50,159 views a month recently.

Why is The Correspondent on the Best Books of 2025 list?

300 readers have shelved it on Open Library; its Wikipedia page averaged 50,159 views a month recently.

More of the best books of 2025

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• Katabasis R. F. Kuang, #2
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• If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies Eliezer Yudkowsky, #5
• Wild Dark Shore Charlotte McConaghy, #6

See the full Best Books of 2025, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.