The Correspondent

The Summary (no spoilers)

Told entirely through one woman’s written correspondence over a period of several years, this is a beautiful story about friendship, grief, loneliness, and love.

Touchstones

In many way, this book is about how life is short. We should tell people how we feel. We should look for the answers to our questions. We should mend relationships and not leave things undone.

You get the one life. It’s awfully unfair, isn’t it?… Now that I’m dying it seems much simpler than it ever did before. Living, I mean.”

A podcaster I listen to talks about the tragedies of life as the chaos lottery. You can take every precaution and still sometimes your ticket gets pulled and you have to confront a death or a diagnosis or an accident or a disaster or any number of other things that happen to people through no fault of their own.

Terrible accidents happen all the time to many, many people. The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible… and it persists.

The chaos lottery should remind us to give grace to ourselves and others, but it can be so easy to forget and to lay blame. I was talking with a couple of colleagues recently about the idea that we contain multitudes (as Walt Whitman wrote). I, unfortunately, have the problem sometimes of recognizing and allowing that I contain multitudes, while not allowing others to contain multitudes as well. This bit of writing from mother to daughter was piercing in more ways than one.

I’m sorry I didn’t do better. I know you think of me as your mother only, but please remember, inside I am also just a girl.

Oof.

Finally, some instructions for letter writing (should we like to begin):

I write slowly. A letter might take me an hour or more. I do not rush. I think through each sentence. My hand does not get tired. You mustn’t rush. When you rush you pen things you didn’t mean and you tire. It takes patience to say exactly what one means, to think of the right word… I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal… the easiest inroad is to begin with a thank you, for a gift or a kindness or a letter, you know, and then take it from there. Answer every questions they’ve asked, and ask your own , and you will have created a never-ending circuit of curiosity and learning… My suggestion would be to think of someone who is far away, someone you don’t see frequently or speak to often on the phone but dearly wish you could, and write to them. I wish you the very best.

My Review

This book is so beautifully well done. I had seen it show up on a few peoples’ favorites list and deservedly so. The format of telling a story solely through letters is unique, and made me want to start up a pen pal relationship or two. The story itself is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I was tearful on more than one occasion. Her correspondence often includes what she is reading at the time, and there were a handful of titles with which I was familiar that are now shifted to the top of my reading list. (What a gift to have more good books out there than I will ever have time to read.) I got this one from the library, but I may need to purchase it to have it for keeps. Before this I had read several books in a row that were just… fine. But I’m happy to give The Correspondent 5 stars.