You should read this because it is a masterclass in character study. If you enjoy books that feel “human” and technically precise in their emotional delivery, this is it. It captures the “hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age” without being sentimental. For a photographer, the book’s “epistolary” format (told entirely through letters and emails) mimics the act of observation—you are piecing together a life one frame (or letter) at a time.
- Virginia Evans
- Literary Fiction
- Rich
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The story centers on Sybil Van Antwerp, a 73-year-old retired lawyer and “chief clerk” who has spent her life making sense of the world through letters. Every morning at 10:30, she sits down to write to a sprawling cast: her brother, her best friend, the president of a university she wants to audit, and even literary icons like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them exactly what she thinks of their latest books.
While Sybil uses her sharp wit and “cantankerous but well-mannered” personality to keep people at arm’s length, the outside world begins to press in. A mysterious letter from her past and a modern DNA kit force her to confront a buried family tragedy and the one letter she has been writing for years but has never sent.