Sophie's Choice

London: Jonathan Cape, 1979. 1st UK. hardback. Very good, 1st UK edition, clipped d/j (good with just minor bumping); black boards clean, gilt spine titling bright; text block firm, pages crisp and unmarked. A little foxing on edges.. 8vo (230 x 150 / 9"" x 6""). Award-winning (National Book Award) novel of love, survival, and agonizing regret in postÐWWII Brooklyn Òbelongs on that small shelf reserved for American masterpiecesÓ (The Washington Post Book World). Centers on three characters: Stingo, a sexually frustrated aspiring novelist; Nathan, his charismatic but violent Jewish neighbor; and Sophie, an Auschwitz survivor who is NathanÕs lover. Their entanglement in one anotherÕs lives will build to a stirring revelation of agonizing secrets that will change them forever. Poetic in its execution, and epic in its emotional sweep, SophieÕs Choice explores the good and evil of humanity through StingoÕs burgeoning worldliness, NathanÕs volatile personality, and SophieÕs tragic past. Mixing elements from StyronÕs own experience with themes of the Holocaust and the history of slavery in the American South, the novel is a profound and haunting human drama, representing Styron at the pinnacle of his literary brilliance.