Words: Roya Reese (she/her)
‘Emails exist in a space between letters and texts, conversations and phone callS.’
Sally Rooney has often been credited as the quintessential millennial novelist, particularly for incorporating mediums such as text and email into her work. In her famous novel Normal People, emails bridge gaps in Marianne and Connell’s relationship, marking time when they’re apart. When I first read the novel I loved the idea of writing emails (or receiving them from a former lover who spent hours poring over them, perfecting the wording, as Connell does…). But they take up the most space in Rooney’s third novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You, where emails between best friends Alice and Eileen occupy entire chapters of the novel.
I was thirteen when I met Kate: a renaissance girl at heart, who wears lockets, writes poetry, and takes all her class notes with a fountain pen. We’ve been long-distance friends for years and have many online communication options — text, call, DM, WhatsApp, Facetime, the list goes on — which we use when we require immediate reactions like when we’re booking plane tickets or laughing about my brother’s latest girlfriend. But inspiration struck when I read Beautiful World, and we started sending each other weekly emails. The first few were short, mundane:
To: Kate
From: Roya, March 2022
My lovely friend. I think writing longform emails will be a super fun new thing for us. Of course, phone calls are great, but hear me out…maybe this is overly sentimental, but it could be cool to look back on these in the future.
Hello, 17 year-old Roya! It’s the future, and it is cool to look back on these.
Of course, writing emails certainly isn’t new. But what about writing emails to your friends? It may seem overly formal, but it’s backed by a deep literary tradition: before the email novel, there was the epistolary novel. Emails exist in a space between letters and texts, conversations and phone calls. But what does this space mean? How does the ‘container’ of the email affect the content of the relationship?
For Kate and I, the time between receiving the email, excitedly reading it, and responding, is usually about 7-10 days — a long percolation window. This allows for a ritualism of the email-writing; they become woven into the weekly fabric of our lives. We’re able to devote time and energy to the relationship in a unique format. Rooney’s characters experience this too. Eileen signs off: ‘I was sitting half-asleep in the back of a taxi, remembering strangely that wherever I go, you are with me… and that as long as you both live the world will be beautiful to me.’
And this is exactly how I feel when I write to Kate: I savor moments and relish in recounting them.
To: Roya
From: Kate, December 2023
I do enjoy unpacking things in these emails — sometimes, when I write to you about something, it’s nice to step away from it until I receive your response. That way I have two fresh perspectives on it; my own, and yours.
Along with gaining a new perspective, Kate and I have developed our voices through writing these emails. We have a routine of elaborate sign-offs, which began with our own inventions (‘Wishing you crappy reality shows, good hair days, and a lighter workload’) and evolved to adapt Taylor Swift lyrics (‘Sending you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other’).
In Beautiful World, Alice tells Eileen, ‘You should know that our correspondence is my way of holding on to life, taking notes on it.’ And it’s true — looking back on these emails feels like a diary, an epistolary novel of our own. I watch the narrative of our lives unfold as the emails move through crushes (in our ‘crush update’ section of each email) to familial gossip, from internships to jobs, and that over-familiar question of ‘what’s next?’. I witness the moment inklings become ideas: the poem I sent in summer 2022 that I later developed into a feature-length screenplay, and when Kate ‘got to thinking about how fun it would be to be a PhD student…’ (she is now deep into applications!).
Kate and I, like Rooney’s characters, have used emails to maintain and extend our relationship. There’s nothing wrong with texting, but it’s worth considering the meaning behind how we choose to communicate. Part conversation, part diary, emails are often more thought-out and less immediate than text. Although the format may be associated with work and school, perhaps it’s time to reinvent that.
From: Roya
To: Reader
Go on. Send an email to that friend you’ve been wanting to reconnect with.
I dare you.
