It’s winter and the weather outside is cold and gray and sleety. When not exercising in the gym or fulfilling our several committee assignments, the Chief Penguin and I find ourselves burrowing deep into reading or bingeing on a TV series. Hence, this week, you have here a book and a medical drama.
FABULOUS NOVEL
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Viriginia Evans is 39 and has a stack of unpublished novels. Disappointed and depressed, she started writing again, partly just to vent. The result was The Correspondent, long in the making, and a word-of-mouth surprise bestseller. It was published in 2025. I just finished reading it, and I loved it!
It’s an epistolary novel, told totally in letters; in this case, letters to and from Sybil Van Antwerp, a divorced woman in her early 70’s. Over the years, I’ve read a few epistolary novels. Two have stayed with me. One is Clarissa by Samuel Richardson, published in 1748 and considered a landmark in psychological realism. I read that one in college. The other is An American Marriage (2018) by Tayari Jones. It uses letters between a woman and her husband, in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, to depict the shortcomings of the criminal justice system and the tensions in their relationship.
In The Correspondent, Sybil is a retired lawyer who was in private practice with Guy Donnelly. When he became a judge, she served as his clerk. Her career was central to who she is. Sybil has always liked order and is not afraid to write, (but not speak) her mind. She has two adult children, a childhood friend, Rosalie, and a brother, Felix. She writes to her family and friends and also to well-known authors (Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry being two examples) and even to a customer service staff member from Syria.
The letters are written over the course of nine years and through them, the reader also gets to know Sybil’s children Bruce and Fiona; her best friend Rosalie; her neighbor Theodore Lubeck; Harry, a troubled teenager; her Texan suitor Mick; and what books she’s reading. The presence of Harry and the gift of a DNA test kit open new horizons for Sybil and shake up her previously quiet existence.
I found Sybil a fascinating character and a fully realized and convincing senior citizen. I was engaged with her and Rosalie and the ups and downs of their 60-year friendship. I also sympathized with Sybil as she tried to sort out why she and her daughter Fiona were somewhat at odds. There’s humor and poignancy and very real human emotion in these letters. And anyone who’s a lover of books will smile over Sybil’s leisure reading. Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)
COMPELLING VIEWING
The Pitt Season 1 (HBO Max)
The Chief Penguin and I joined the Dr. Robby fan club as soon as we began watching The Pitt. Set in an emergency room in a Pittsburgh hospital, this fictional series is intense, realistic, and compelling. Each episode, there are 15 episodes in Season 1, covers one hour of the day in this ER. At the head of it all is Dr. Michael Robinavitch, aka Dr. Robby, head nurse Dana, and a bevy of doctors, medical students, and other staff dealing with the arriving patients.
Some cases are gory accidents needing immediate attention, others are less serious, while sometimes the most difficult aspect of a case is not the medical treatment, but dealing with family members. Parents or adult children who are upset and in denial about their son’s or their father’s chances for recovery. Also evident is the impact on the medical staff of providing care in this stressful environment. How do they develop the resilience needed to continue after losing their first or their fiftieth patient.
Overall, the series producers have a doctor evaluating the episodes as they film them to make the series as close to a real ER situation as possible within its fictional context. Dr. Robby is played by Noah Wyle who had a lead role in the earlier ER TV series.
We are three episodes into the first season, and Season 2 has just been released. The episodes are graphic and can be hard to watch, perhaps too much for some, but we are definitely hooked! (~JWFarrington)
FORTHCOMING
Notes on the Netflix crime drama, His & Hers, and a mystery novel by Denise Mina.
Note: Header winter photo ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
My son in law, Val Bratinov, a chief Resident in a Baltimore ER states that he and his staff can finally explain to friends what a shift is like, by referring people to view The Pitt.