The Correspondent

The Correspondent is an epistolary novel told through letters and emails sent between 2012 and 2022. Its writer is Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer who lives alone in Annapolis. She is divorced, with two living adult children and a son who died at the age of eight.

Adopted as a child, she is unsure whether to find out about her birth parents. A lifelong letter writer, she corresponds with family, former colleagues and authors, even as she is gradually losing her eyesight. Among the letters is a series she writes to an unknown recipient and never sends.