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| Published 29 April 2025 |
Oh, I enjoyed this book. The novel features a woman in her seventies named Sybil Stone Van Antwerp. However, the genre is epistolary, meaning that we read a series of letters that Sybil and a handful of friends, family members, and at times strangers write to each other. Sybil is an avid reader, and some of her correspondents are famous authors, which makes for some fun cameos of sorts. (This is all fiction, however.)
For me, the more engaging exchanges take place between Sybil and close friends and family members. Having more than one person comment on past events gives us more than one point of view, and much of the novel's conflicts have to do with these clashes of perception.
Because of her age and the distance of some of the events from her childhood and the early years of her marriage, we watch Sybil experience a mix of nostalgia and regret. She also reviews some events related to her work as a paralegal. It's often the case that as people transition into late life they start conducting a life review--whether it's formally done by writing a memoir or informally done by reframing events to evaluate one's character and one's legacy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this novel even though at times I felt a lot of anxiety about how things were unfolding, and at times I felt sorrow for the consequences of some of Sybil's choices. It's hard to be a human being, and it's often impossible to transcend the gulf between your experience and another person's experience. Nevertheless, we need to reach out to each other and try to understand the other person's situation so that we can offer each other grace.
Related:
Ten Books: An Essential Library on Aging
When The Cranes Fly South: Book Review
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