The Correspondent by Virginia Evans: Character Guide

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One of the elements that makes The Correspondent so interesting is that it is full of so many fascinating characters, and it has A LOT of them.

For a book that is only about 300 pages, The Correspondent by Virginia Evans has a shocking number of characters. There are a total of 70 characters! (I don’t know if that is a record for a book of this size, but it might be.)

And that is exactly why I put together this character guide for The Correspondent. This guide will be helpful while you read this book OR to bring along to your book club to keep track of who’s who while you discuss this book.

I decided to organize the characters alphabetically into the following categories:

Family Members
Friends
Strangers
Authors/Filmmakers
Surprise Characters (AKA Spoilers): This is where I keep characters that I think are spoilers (for those who are still reading the book)

* If you are looking for a list of the books mentioned, I decided to put all the books mentioned in The Correspondent in a separate post.

The Correspondent Characters

Family Members

Bruce: Sybil’s son; lawyer in Alexandria
Charles (Charlie): Fiona’s baby; Sybil’s grandson
Colt: the person Sybil is writing the “unsent” letters to *(see below for spoiler)
Daan: Sybil’s ex-husband
Gilbert: Sybil’s child who died
Felix Stone: Sybil’s brother; lives in France
Fiona: Sybil’s daughter, who is married and living in London, works as an architect.
Hank: Sybil’s grandson; Bruce’s son
Heloise: Sybil’s aunt; her mother’s sister
Lars: Rosalie’s husband; Daan’s brother
Lina: Daan’s current wife
Mary Stone: Sybil’s adopted mother
Marie: Bruce’s wife
Paul: Rosalie’s son
Rosalie: Sybil’s best friend and sister-in-law; married to Lars (who is Daan’s brother)
Stewart: Felix’s boyfriend
Sybil Van Antwerp: The main character, who is a divorced, retired law clerk. She is 73 years old when the book opens.
Violet: Sybil’s granddaughter; Bruce’s daughter
Walt: Fiona’s husband

Friends

Alice Livingston: friend from Sybil’s garden club
Mrs. Curry: Sybil’s neighbor when Felix was brought home when he was adopted.
Debbie Banks: a woman from the garden club who is mad at Sybil because Sybil doesn’t think her son should be allowed to present to the group about real estate
Dr. Dittmyer: the surgeon Sybil sees after she sprains her ankle and breaks her wrist; son of Sybil’s friend Helen
Guy Donnelly: Sybil’s former law partner; she later becomes his chief law clerk when he becomes a judge
Harry Landry: The child Sybil writes a monthly letter to
Helen Dittmyer: Sybil’s friend; the mother of Dr. Dittmyer (see above)
James Landry: judge; Harry’s father
Liz: Guy’s wife
Marly Landry: Harry’s mom, James’ wife; seems to be in rehab most of the book
Maude O’Reilly: woman from the garden club
Mick Watts: former attorney; Sybil dates him for a while in the book
Millie: friend of Sybil, whom she’s also known for 30 years
Mitsy: the maid when Sybil and Felix were kids
Nancy Louise (Young): daughter of Guy
Theodore Lübeck: Sybil’s neighbor
Thor: Harry’s dog
Trudy: friend of Sybil, whom she’s known for 30 years

Strangers

Alex Toole: the journalist who featured Sybil in a “whatever happened to…” column
Amos Watts: son of Mick Watts
Angela Bleeker: Daan’s lawyer in Brussels
Basam: the representative from Kindred that Sybil befriends
Dale Woodsen: friend of Bruce; the man who helps Basam get a job
DM : the person writing hate and threatening mail to Sybil (p. 26, 43, 68)
Emir: Basam’s son
Ms. Genet:
Kalee: Basam’s wife
Dr. Laura: Harry’s former therapist
Dr. Oliver: Harry’s new therapist
Elizabeth Franklin: a woman who sued her kids (p. 16)
Emerson Franks: Editor-in-Chief of the Baltimore Sun (p. 58)
Lauren Landry: One of Harry Landry’s sisters
Melissa Genet: Dean of the College of English at the University of Maryland, College Park
Tom Buggs: the judge that James clerked for in the 1980s
Steve: Lauren Landry’s boyfriend
Susannah: one of Harry Landry’s sisters
Wendy Watts: Mick Watts’ ex-wife
Zoha: One of Basam’s children

Authors/Filmmakers

Ann Patchett
Diana Gabaldon
George Lucas
Joan Didion
Larry McMurtry

Surprise Characters (AKA Spoilers)

If you are still reading the book while looking at this list, I would consider the details about the characters in this list spoilers; that’s why I put them down here. I’m someone who doesn’t like spoilers, but I have friends who like to read the last chapter of a book at the beginning.

We later find out in the story that Colt is Gilbert. Colt was a nickname for him.

We find out that DM is a man named Dezi Martinelli, who is the son of a man named Enzo Martinelli, who was handed down a harsh sentence by Guy and Sybil that led the family to return to Italy and ultimately led to the demise of Enzo. Dezi blames Sybil for this, and we ultimately find out why Sybil was so harsh at the time.

Enzo Martinelli: Dezi’s father
Florencia Martinelli: Dezi’s mom
Aldo Martinelli: Dezi’s brother

Through Kindred, Sybil finds out that she has the following family members:

Henrietta (Hattie) Gleason: Sybil’s full biological sister, who lives in Scotland, to whom she’s connected through Kindred (a fictional platform, similar to Ancestry DNA); works as a botanist; four years younger than Sybil
Declan (Dec) Gleason: Sybil’s half-brother in Scotland; owns a pub
John Gleason: Sybil’s half-brother in Scotland
Douglas (Douggie) Gleason: Sybil’s half-brother in Scotland
Charlie Thorne: Sybil’s biological father; half Crow (a Native American tribe)
Louisa (Thorne) Gleason: Sybil’s biological mother; native to Scotland
David and Mildred Thorne: Charlie’s parents (David died by a cattle stampeed)