Good, modern epistolary novels?

February 20, 2025 1:50 PM

Looking for something mostly in the vein of literary fiction though it doesn't need to be the absolute literariest. One recommendation I keep googling up is This is How You Lose the Time War but I don't vibe much with sci-fi/fantasy. Ideally something from this century though mostly what I'm looking for is just not extremely dated-feeling. One I can think of that I think is lovely is Perks of Being a Wallflower but I'm not specifically looking for YA....Got anything?
posted by less-of-course to Media & Arts (25 answers total)

Possession by AS Byatt is a 1990 novel that won the Booker Prize. It's extraordinary.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:55 PM on February 20 [8 favorites]

I was really surprised by how much I liked World War Z considering how much I dislike the zombie genre. The framing is a series of interviews by iirc a UN researcher looking into the early days of the (and again, I cringe to say) zombie war.
posted by phunniemee at 1:59 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher is a fun read.
Letters to Amelia by Lindsay Zier-Vogel is not exactly epistolary but contains some excerpts of the titular letters.
The Woman in the Library by Sulari Genti is gripping but I found the ending quite disconcerting.
posted by phlox at 2:03 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Here are three I've read and would recommend:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafter and Annie Barrows
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Hey Ladies! by Michelle Markowitz and Caroline Moss (I'm not sure this qualifies as literary fiction, but I wouldn't consider it to be genre either—it's very funny and invites reflection on pre-pandemic millennial culture)

I'll keep thinking!

[Edited to try to fix borked links]
posted by timestep at 2:08 PM on February 20

Not entirely but partially epistolary: Happiness as Such by the great Natalia Ginzburg.
posted by gigondas at 2:13 PM on February 20

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney: half the chapters are narrated in third person by an objective narrator, half of them are emails sent between the two protagonists, set in the late 2010s

A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey: written in the '70s and structured as letters written by a woman living in Texas in the early 20th century, but I don't recall it feeling TOO dated

Seconding Possession
posted by clair-de-lune at 2:22 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
posted by zeptoweasel at 2:26 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]

People either love or hate this book, but The Divorce Papers by Susan Rieger was a delight for me.
posted by notjustthefish at 2:29 PM on February 20

This is definitely not Serious Literary Fiction but is epistolary .... Where'd You Go, Bernadette.

It gets mixed reviews, but there is an aspect to it (which I don't want to reveal because it is spoilery) that is for me the absolute best depiction of a woman dealing the very sensitive personal crisis that Bernadette deals with, that I have ever read. As someone who has gone through that particular crisis, it spoke to me in a way that made me feel more seen than I could possibly believe. And for that, along with the fact that I do not generally like epistolary novels but really enjoyed it, that I do admit I love this book.
posted by fennario at 2:33 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Maybe Gilead by Marilynne Robinson? It takes the form of letters from a pastor who has married and become a father relatively late in life, and the book is his letters to his young son who he knows he probably won’t live to see as an adult. Perhaps not quite what you’re after as the direction of communication is all one way, but it’s a lovely and deeply moving book.
posted by damsel with a dulcimer at 2:49 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Just throwing this out there: This Is How You Lose The Time War is really not sci-fi/fantasy. I’d consider it much closer to long form poetry. It’s beautifully written, and consists much more of vibes than any sci-fi-ness.
posted by bluloo at 3:35 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]

Clara Callen
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:35 PM on February 20

griffin & sabine [postcrossing]
s. [booksaremythirdplace]
posted by HearHere at 3:41 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Janice Hallett's books are fun, especially The Appeal.
posted by WithWildAbandon at 3:48 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I guess this is cheating but apparently Wikipedia has a List of contemporary epistolary novels. FWIW.
posted by forthright at 4:11 PM on February 20

There's Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles, which is one letter.
posted by scratch at 4:26 PM on February 20

Ditto Janice Hallet's The Appeal.
Also it's a bit gimmicky (ok it's a lot gimmicky), but I liked Doug Dorst's S.
posted by juv3nal at 7:44 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Catherine Hernandez, Scarborough has epistolary elements (in the form of emails back and forth) interspersed with more traditional narrative. Amazing novel, though.
posted by EarnestDeer at 4:49 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

I was reminded thanks to forthright's list: March was a very compelling piece of writing when I read it a couple years ago.
posted by ch1x0r at 4:58 AM on February 21

Seconding Ella Minnow Pea above. The tone sounds a little old-fashioned - the voice people use in their various letters is a bit quaint - but they talk about computers and cars, so it's definitely present day. And it's definitely charming - a friend who's a children/teen librarian read it and said it was "the coziest dystopia I've ever read". (The "dystopia" is more about a weird and ultimately-defeated government overreach in one location as opposed to world-ending catastrophe, so it's not sci-fi/fantasy.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:18 AM on February 21

Short, indeed short enough to read through twice in one sitting, but very good is Helen DeWitt's The English Know Wool. It's mostly a woman writing to her publisher about recent events in her life all about her finishing a book she has under contract. Very nicely done.
posted by drossdragon at 8:06 AM on February 21

The Examiner is a mystery that unfolds through online coursework in a UK commercial art masters' program.
posted by Summers at 10:49 AM on February 21

Not exactly new, and subject matter is kinda jingoistic, but John Ringo's The Last Centurion, IIRC, was an epistolary first-person novel about "Bandit Six" standing tall when the world was hit by both a mini-ice age and a plague of Biblical proportions.
posted by kschang at 11:10 PM on February 21

It's light, but worth a read: More Than Love Letters by Rosy Thornton.
posted by gudrun at 7:19 AM on February 23

The Examiner is a mystery that unfolds through online coursework in a UK commercial art masters' program.
Since I had to look it up, maybe I'll save someone else the trouble, the Examiner is also by Janice Hallet (one I was previously unaware of).
posted by juv3nal at 5:03 PM on February 24