The Correspondent by Virginia Evans review – immensely enjoyable return of the epistolary novel

This moving work about an irascible woman in her 70s who conducts her most intimate relationships through letters has been shortlisted for the Women’s prize Epistolary novels were once all the rage, from the epic Clarissa to the lurid fun of Dracula. They don’t come along very often now, perhaps because they can be tricky to do well: all those gaps and omissions, the need for a flawless command of tone and voice, the problem of creating movement within an unusually hermetic form. But every n...

By Rebecca Wait