Literary Fiction · Free kit
The Correspondent
An epistolary novel of a life told in letters. From 2012 to 2022, retired lawyer Sybil Van Antwerp writes from her Annapolis desk — to her brother Felix, her best friend Rosalie, her adult children Bruce and Fiona, authors she admires, and one person who never receives what she writes. As her eyesight fails and old grief over her son Gilbert resurfaces, correspondence becomes the only map she trusts of who she has been.
“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”
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Plan your meeting
The Correspondent Icebreakers
Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.
Personality Reveal
1. Are you more likely to send the hard text immediately, or draft it three times and never hit send?
Personality Reveal
2. Do you keep old letters, cards, and emails — or delete / recycle them as soon as you’ve read them?
Personality Reveal
3. When you need to think something through, do you talk it out with a person or write it down alone first?
Funny & Light
4. What’s the most dramatic letter, email, or text you’ve ever written and then wisely (or unwisely) deleted?
Funny & Light
5. If your friends had to guess your handwriting personality from one sticky note, what would they get wrong?
Funny & Light
6. What’s a small daily ritual you defend as essential that other people find slightly ridiculous?
Would You Rather
7. Would you rather receive one beautiful handwritten letter a year, or unlimited perfectly timed texts forever?
Would You Rather
8. Would you rather know every family secret from a DNA test, or keep a few mysteries on purpose?
Would You Rather
9. Would you rather be the friend people write their real feelings to, or the friend people call when they need a ride?
Hot Take
10. Hot take: handwritten thank-you notes are obsolete. Defend or destroy.
Hot Take
11. Hot take: if you won’t say it to someone’s face, you shouldn’t put it in a letter either. Agree or disagree?
Hot Take
12. Hot take: adult children owe their parents fewer updates than parents think. True or false?
Personal Connection
13. Who is the person you’ve written to the longest — even if the “letters” are mostly group chats now?
Personal Connection
14. What’s one piece of paper (or screenshot) you’d want someone to find that explains who you were?
Personal Connection
15. Name a book or author you’d write to if you thought they might actually write back.