What Happened to Sophie Wilder
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A heartfelt exploration of faith and love and friendship, What Happened To Sophie Wilder is a beautiful, absorbing work about the redemptive power of storytelling: a literary love story.
Charlie Blakeman has just published his first novel, to almost no acclaim. He's living on New York's Washington Square, struggling with his follow-up, and floundering within his pseudointellectual coterie when his college love, Sophie Wilder, returns to his life. Sophie is also struggling, though Charlie isn't sure why, since they've barely spoke, after falling out a decade before. Now Sophie begins to tell Charlie the story of her life since then, particularly the story of the days she spent taking care of a dying man with his own terrible past and of the difficult decision he forced her to make. When she disappears once again, Charlie sets out to discover what happened to Sophie Wilder. Christopher Beha's debut novel explores faith, love, friendship, and, ultimately, the redemptive power of storytelling.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Beha's debut novel (after the memoir The Whole Five Feet) is a thoughtful journey about the place of intellectual curiosity in relation to faith, friendship, and love. Charlie Blakeman is enamored of Sophie Wilder, fellow creative writing M.F.A. student. They spend hours talking, writing, and reading before Sophie decides she needs a break and disappears, for days or sometimes weeks, but always returning. Then, a betrayal causes a longer breach. Both Charlie and Sophie publish novels, but only Sophie's is acclaimed. Struggles with their second books push Sophie toward Catholicism. When she drops back into Charlie's life, he wants to pick up the pieces, whereas she has a hidden agenda. It's difficult to empathize with Sophie, even when she's trying to do the right thing, because she's so blatantly indifferent to the harm she causes. The stories she tells are manipulated to make them better, and readers also see Sophie through the stories Charlie tells, raising the potent question: where does the real Sophie end and Charlie's interpretation of her begin? Beha is smart enough to let the reader decide.
