What I Learned About Connection from The Correspondent*
"People are people" Fictional Character Sybil Van Antwerp Tells A Friend Astonished to Learn Sylvia's Received Letters from Walt Disney and Other Celebrities
Sylvia Van Antwerp is an ordinary 70-something retired lawyer and divorced woman living in Baltimore. She’s facing blindness, estrangement from her children and the attention of two men. Even so, she writes letters, something she’s been doing ever since she was a child.
Her obsession with letter-writing (and it is an obsession because she claims there are likely thousands of letters) all began when she was given a letter from her birth mother, one that went to her adoptive mother. Sylvia, in turn, began writing letters to anyone and everyone.
“This surprises people, but I have found most people write back,” she writes in a letter dated May 13, 2013. “The first letter I ever wrote was in 1948 to P.L. Travers regarding her book Mary Poppins. I loved this book and read it numerous times. I loved that Mary Poppins conducted her own life, and the lives of the children Jane and Michael, in such a controlled, even military manner.” She gushed about this and more in her fan letter. “P.L. Travers wrote me back and I have it somewhere at the house.”
A fictional high school student, working on a school project, asks Sylvia more about her obsession. “She wanted to know with whom I exchange correspondence, and I told her: anyone! Of course, the letters I cherish most would be of little or no interest to her, but I showed a few of the more remarkable letters —the one from Jackie Kennedy, the one from Walt Disney,” Sylvia writes.
“I write to anyone that strikes me: Friends, lawmakers, editors, teachers, diplomats, authors. Authors are my favorite,” Sylvia writes in a later letter to the same student. Authors clearly are favored. Joan Didion, Ann Patchett, Kazuo Ishiguro, Diana Gabaldon, Larry McMurtry, George Lucas are some of the famed folks she boldly sends missives.
Larry sends back a response.
“December 24, 2018
Dear Ms. Van Antwerp,
Thank you for your note regarding Lonesome Dove. It seems that book has meant something to a good many people, and in ways I didn’t even foresee, but I wills ay there was something in your letter I thought was interesting, that hurting my characters takes courage. That was interesting.
You’re right what you said bout eat rouble it is to make it through life, but here we are, so I guess we’ve outsmarted something. I’m sure you’re not as old as me, though. My bookstore is really more of a book town. If you do end up visiting, let me know, and I’ll be sure to meet you in person.
All the best, and Merry Christmas,
Larry
See how personal and warm it reads. That’s not all. It’s clear that Sylvia has a semi-regular correspondence with Didion. Astonishing, but Sylvia doesn’t think so.
“I do wonder if by conducting the most relationships of my life in correspondence, I have kept, since I was a child, a distance between myself and others,” she wrote in a letter to her estranged daughter Fiona. “I think it’s true the letters have insulated me, have been a force field, just as practicing law insulated me from dealing with humanity directly, and I wouldn’t change any of it, but I find myself at this old, age, wanting closeness I want closeness. Something I have not had other than than when I met Dad.”
It fascinates me that a fictional character might consider letters a form of distancing. Did phone calls, once they supplanted telegrams and personal face-to-face visits become a form of distancing after the telephone became popular? Can you imagine a character or even a real-life person saying, “I do wonder if by conducting the relationships of my life by telephone, I have kept, since I was a child, a distance from myself and others.” Imagine!
Yet here we are. Letters were and continue to be intimate conversations. People are people, Sylvia said more than once in the book. They crave connection, perhaps more than ever now with technology and more people choosing to live alone. I’ve more than often have said I missed the blinking light of my answering machine welcoming me home. The blinks, said I matter, whether it was the slow blink of a scarcely filled inbox or the frantic, rapid blink of an overflowing voicemail box. Somebody wants to talk to you, the answering machine said. Sometimes, it told lots of people wanted me to return their call. That never happens now on my iPhone. Cynical me can feel sad about that.
But Sylvia was an optimist. The Correspondent overflowed with fan letters to authors. I’ve written a few to Cormac McCarthy, another to Robert Caro (unsent). More recently, I wrote a letter to Rick Steeves, asking for career advice.
I didn’t get any from Steeves or McCarthy and I stopped writing fan letters. But all these letters that Sylvia sent along with some fictional published responses sparked something in me. Imagine being inspired by a woman who only lives on paper.
Maybe it’s time to start writing fan letters again. Spin some Southworth 25 percent cotton paper around the platen on my Selectric. Find an author or two or three and rave about this book or that. Ask a question. Share a little about my writing challenges. Sign my letter with an ink pen and flourish.
Buy a USPS stamp (Sylvia only used those with American flags), slap it in the upper right corner. Lick the envelope close (yes, some still demand a lick or two, the adhesive doesn’t always work. I sometimes add glue).
Drop it in the mailbox. Hold my breath. See what happens. Write another letter, and another letter to another author on the list. Sylvia ended one fan letter to Gabaldon with: “And did you begin as a writer or a historian? I’d love to hear from you, if you are the letter-writing sort. Most are not, but every once in a while I strike oil.”
That Sylvia, she was a bold one, a confident correspondent. Reader, see if you can strike oil. Maybe it’ll be a dribble of liquid gold or a great gusher. At least die trying.
It’s been a while since a novel has set me thinking about how I can enrich my life further with letters. The last one was Syme’s Letter Writer, which I also reviewed. Syme’s Letter Writer led me to a great pile of books of compiled real-life correspondence. My favorite, which I need to finish, was As Always, The Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto. Avis wrote much as the fictional Sylvia did, effusive and electric.
Let me know what what fan letters you’ve written and whether you’ve got a response.
Well, I was so inspired by The Correspondent, I’m paying to attend a book signing next month. This is a first for me. Buy a signed book and pose with the author? The book is that good, friends.
*Sylvia is an Obama voter, but I’ll let it go since The Correspondent is wonderful. Avis DeVoto was a diehard Democrat, almost annoyingly so, but she’s funny.
