The novel follows Sybil Van Antwerp, a sharp, formidable retired lawyer in her 70s a mother, grandmother, divorcée, and prolific letter-writer. Every morning, she sits down to write letters to her brother, her closest friend, a university president, authors like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry (sharing her candid opinions on their books), and one mysterious person she writes to often but never actually sends the letters. But when letters from someone out of her past resurface, they force her to confront one of the most painful periods of her life and she realizes that the "letter" she's been writing internally for years finally needs to be read, and that she must find it within herself to forgive.
