Several of you blog readers recommended this to me and I’m glad you did. I loved it.

The epistolary format made it easy to read (and stop often) during a busy time, all without losing the thread, since letters come in spread out in that same way.

This novel is the correspondence of a retired, divorced woman in her eighties, as she writes her friends, family, neighbors, clubs, enemies, and even her favorite authors. A clear story line emerges, and we come to like her, even though she’s not perfect. She is thoughtfully smart, persistently stubborn, and brutally honest.

Because the story is all told in letters and emails, it feels intimate and revelatory, and it also reads a bit like a mystery, because you never know what you’ll discover as the letters keep coming and going.

Here are some bits:

• “I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal.”
• “I had him for so much less time than I’ve lived without him, and yet his presence is enormous, though I keep it to myself. It is as if I’ve swallowed a hot air balloon but try not to let on.”
• As a child, she day dreamed of Mary Poppins minding her “with the perfect combination of wonder and predictability.”
• “Sometimes [regarding advice about letter writing] the easiest road is to begin with a thank you, for a gift, or a kindness, or a letter, and then take it from there. Answer every question they ask, and ask your own, and you will have created a never-ending circuit of curiosity and learning.”

I found  The Correspondent deeply engaging, and I recommend it to you. I give it 5 stars. Now I want to write more letters!