Excerpt from The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Regards,

Sybil Van Antwerp


Ms. Ann Patchett

c/o Parnassus Books
3900 Hillsboro Pike
#14
Nashville, TN 37215

June 2, 2012

Dear Ann,

I am writing to congratulate you on your most recent novel, State of Wonder, which was given to me for my birthday by my brother. I finished reading it this morning. Today is Saturday and I only started the book Thursday, which says something in itself, though you wouldn't know that as we are strangers, though not utter strangers, as we have exchanged letters on one previous occasion, and that was when I read your first big smash Bel Canto in the very early part of the millennium and you sent a reply, remarking on my penmanship and encouraging me to address you by your first name. You might, though perhaps not, depending on the volume of letters you receive and read on a regular basis, recall from that letter that I enjoyed Bel Canto very much, but this new book is even better. (I should add, for clarity's sake, that I did write to you when I finished reading the book before this one, Run, but I never heard back, but that's just fine, so don't give it a second thought.)

It typically takes me four days to read a novel of standard length, but I was flying through the pages of State of Wonder, that exotic Amazonian backdrop and those smart, tremendously complex women Drs. Singh and Swenson. How did you come to be so knowledgeable about these things—the details about the Amazon, all the science—? Did you travel there? I found myself wondering about the balance of fact and fiction with the matter of the tree bark. The scene when the behemoth snake comes up from the water onto the boat and wraps its muscular snake body around the child Easter with the Americans looking on in horror, the silence of that scene was positively cinematic. I didn't take a breath for what was it then, five pages or more. And of course, the matter of Dr. Swenson, at her age (my age! Dr. Swenson is seventy-three, and so am I) being pregnant. I can't imagine. When they retrieve the baby there near the end, well that sent a chill right down my spine, but it was wonderful to read such a complex woman of her vintage, bold with her intelligence and dignity as well as her errors, and the layers upon layers of her. I am not a scientist; my own career was in law, but I saw some reflection of myself in her. The agonizing ethical questions for which the reader puts her on trial. That amazement one feels at this stage of life—a sort of astonishment that is also confusion, which leads to a sort of worry, or a sort of fear, I guess. How did we get here? How can it be? My sister-in-law Rosalie and I exchange books, and I am positive she'll love this one, so that's perfect.

Please keep in mind if you ever visit Annapolis, I'd be glad to host you. I have a small house, tucked away in a charming old neighborhood where the homes are well spaced and with massive old trees, you know. It faces the water on a point, and the upstairs is a nice big guest room with its own lavatory and a dormer window that looks toward the Severn River so you can see the boats and the large homes across the way and my garden, which I tend meticulously, there below the window. I live alone, and furthermore, I only ever go upstairs to clean after I've had company, so it's completely private and I think you would be very comfortable there. I am not a writer, but if I was I think it would be a nice place to write a book, so again, you are very welcome if you ever visit. Just a stone's throw from DC.

Until the next book, or your visit, and with warm regards I write,

Sybil Van Antwerp

Excerpted from The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. Copyright © 2025 by Virginia Evans. Excerpted by permission of Crown. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.