I’ve recently finished re-reading Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. I think this is my third reading of it since I acquired my copy about a year and a half ago; nine months between readings seems about right for this one.
Brust and Bull are both best known as fantasy and SF writers, and so in some ways it’s a little odd that their collaboration resulted in a Victorian epistolary novel. (I believe the book’s editor commented at the time of publication that the book is best described as science fiction: the science being that of Hegelian dialectics
.) The philosophy and Marxist theory is fairly thick on the ground, but it’s explained quite clearly. Also, if it starts to get a little heavy for you you can just skip over parts of it… as at least one character in the book admits to doing on occasion.
I haven’t read very many epistolary novels, so I don’t know how common this is, but one of my favourite features about this one is the fact that it does take time for letters to get from one place to another; thus, you end up with letters being written on one day, that don’t arrive at their destination for several days hence… and meanwhile, we’re still getting letters and journal entries from the future receiver of the first letter. The multiplex perspectives can be a little hard to keep track of on occasion, but it’s well worth the effort.
The other thing that pleases me about the book is that it was written more or less as it appears: with the two collaborating authors writing letters back and forth to each other. The result is like a particularly dense long-form improv, where names and references get thrown out in early letters, which then get elaborated on by different characters (often written by the other author) in later letters.