@TimeforaGandT you didn't oversell Scaffolding, don't worry! I'm interested in psychoanalysis so that pulled me in more than anything, plus the positive Sarah Moss review.
@FruAashild that's a good point about Elena Ferrante's age (if she is indeed Anita Raja). Alba de Cespedes would still have been born 40 years earlier than Ferrante though... so the time that Ferrante lived through as a child, de Cespedes lived through as an adult. I like what you say about alternative histories of WW2, from women's perspectives.
@Terpsichore fabulous review of the Garner diaries! Regions of Thick-Ribbed Ice sounds excellent too. By the way, I don't know whether you've seen the film The Last Days of Chez Nous? It's a wonderful film (though I saw it many years ago) and Garner wrote the screenplay. I think her husband F inspired the main male character in the film (though the film isn't autobiographical). I'd like to see it again now that I've read the diaries.
I had no idea that divorce in Ireland was illegal until so recently. Wow.
Sympathy @HagCymraeg , your complicated feelings are entirely understandable.
@Arran2024 I can see what you mean about novels made up of letters, but good epistolary novels I think (emphasis on good!) are every bit as challenging to write as more traditional fictional narratives. The fact that you have to put everything into the voice of the character (or characters) is itself a challenge and a constraint. Also, the letters can be interpreted on multiple levels, because they're not just presenting facts, they're telling you about the relationship between the letter writer and the addressee. Often the letter writer has an agenda (conscious or unconscious) which makes the letters interesting from a psychological point of view: what effect is the letter writer trying to achieve? how does she hope her addressee will react? what is made explicit, and what is left unsaid?
I thought The Correspondent was clever in the way that Sybil wrote to her different correspondents differently, so we could see multiple aspects of her character and her life. Her self-depiction changes depending on which person she's writing to. Nor is she a static character: the letters she receives sometimes gradually broaden her world view and make her change her opinions. There are also elements of suspense and surprise in the way the various letters are organised (for example, a heartfelt letter might be placed next to a more brusque and cynical one).
I confess I'm thinking a lot of Dangerous Liaisons here! It's true that Virginia Evans is no Laclos, but she is definitely playing with the epistolary genre, not just being lazy. Though maybe her version of the genre is a bit gimmicky at times: long-lost people are found! a racist micro-aggression turns into a deep and satisfying relationship between an older white woman and a Syrian immigrant! and so on. All the epistolary relationships turn into beautiful stories with happy endings. In real life, this isn't so likely.