Product Description

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, an inexperienced twenty-two year old Southerner, takes us back to the summer of 1947 and a boarding house in a leafy Brooklyn suburb. There, he meets Nathan, a fiery Jewish intellectual; and Sophie, a beautiful and fragile Polish Catholic. Stingo is drawn into the heart of their passionate and destructive relationship as witness, confidant and supplicant. Ultimately, he arrives at the dark core of Sophie's past: her memories of pre-war Poland, the concentration camp and - the essence of her terrible secret - her choice.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26418 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

Daily Express
A compassionate insight into the greatest evil of our century

The Times
A compassionate, brilliantly written novel

The Times
...a rare insight into the tragic destiny of mankind

Customer Reviews

extremely moving, powerful story that packs a punch.
I throughly enjoyed the film and decided to read the book and it is even better, it is an extremely powerful story centering on three characters, Stingo the narrator, Sophie a Polish emigrant and Nathan, her Jewish lover. The story is set in Brooklyn, New York in 1947 and concerns the relationship between the three who are neighbours in the same boarding house. Initially all is well and they become the best of friends but all is not what it appears. It transpires that Sophie is a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp although she is Polish. She is haunted by her past and by all the friends and family who did not survive the war. As the story continues it takes us back to pre-war Europe in flashback. It also explores her relationship with Nathan, a brilliant but unstable character with his own demons. Without giving too much away the story has a heartbreaking twist to it and a box of tissues might come in handy. For me, what gave it immediacy and such a haunting quality is that Sophie is apparently based on someone who the author actually knew and the reader is left asking how much of it is fiction?

The most moving book I have ever read
Please, Please, Please read this book. It is an amazing account of the lives of three people drawn together in New York in 1947. This book should be read by both young and old. Through it's powerful and spell binding narrative it chronicals in particular the life of Sophie,a Polish survivor of Auschwitz and builds up to the gut renshing and heart breaking finale - her choice.

A deeply uncomfortable read
Although "Sophie's Choice" has been listed as a classic, I found this book to be a very uncomfortable and unsettling read. Through a series of lies and contructed truths, Sophie relates her wartime experiences in Poland leading up until the point where she is liberated from Auschwitz and her attempts to rebuild her life in New York. However, as Sophie is sexually objectified by the narrator's numerous fantasties and verbally and physically abused by her lover and "saviour" Nathan, I found the post war world created by Styron even more disturbing than the past. However, the blunt and honest way in which the post war psyche is explored through 3 very different characters is facinating.