The New York Times– bestselling memoir of crippling depression and the struggle for recovery by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Sophie's Choice .In the summer of 1985, William Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that...

**#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A literary tour de force that chronicles a prize-winning author's descent into an almost suicidal depression."Compelling ... Harrowing ... a vivid portrait of a debilitating disorder ... It offers the solace of a shared experience."—The New York Times**A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his experience of crippling depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to conv...

"One of the finest novels of our times," a New York Times bestseller about a murder in Italy from the National Book Award–winning author of Sophie's Choice ( San Francisco Chronicle ).Shortly after World War II, in the village of Sambuco, Italy, two American men—Peter Leverett and Cass Kinsolving—crossed paths with Mason Flagg. They b...

Lie Down in Darkness traces the tragic fate of a Southern family with acute sensitivity, in a style that mirrors the inner lives of its four major characters. The parents are estranged, with each favoring one of their two daughters. The father dotes on Peyton, the family beauty, while the mother is devoted to Maudie, the disabled child. The novel, told in flashbacks, opens with Peyton's funeral after her emotional unraveling and suicide. The passage Styron reads here shows Maudie'...

A New York Times bestseller by the author of Sophie's Choice: Two Americans search for the truth about a mysterious long-ago murder in Italy.Shortly after World War II, in the village of Sambuco, Italy, two men—Virginia attorney Peter Leverett and South Carolina artist Cass Kinsolving—crossed paths with Mason Flagg. They both had their own reactions to the gregarious and charismatic movie mogul's son. For the impressionable Peter, it was something...

Before writing his memoir of madness, Darkness Visible, William Styron was best known for his ambitious works of fiction–including The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice. Styron also created personal but no less powerful tales based on his real-life experiences as a U.S. Marine. The Suicide Run collects five of these meticulously rendered narratives. One of them–“Elobey, Annobón, and Corisco”–is published here for the first ti...

“Styron’s most impressive performance. . . . Belongs on that small shelf reserved for American masterpieces.” —Washington Post Book WorldWinner of the 1980 National Book Award, Sophie’s Choice is William Styron’s classic novel of love, survival, and regret, set in Brooklyn in the wake of the Second World War. The novel centers on three characters: Stingo, a sexually frustrated aspiring novelist; Nathan, his charismatic but violent Jewish neighbor;...

From the National Book Award–winning and New York Times– bestselling author of Sophie's Choice : three novellas of a young writer's journey to adulthood.In Love Day, twenty-year-old Paul Whitehurst is a Marine lieutenant during World War II, waiting to land on Okinawa, wrestling with anxiety and memories of his boyhood in Virginia.In Shadrach, ten-year-...

Four novels—including the Pulitzer Prize winner The Confessions of Nat Turner and the National Book Award winner Sophie's Choice —by the great American writer.Lie Down in Darkness is William Styron's stunning debut: a classic portrait of one Southern family's tragic spiral into destruction. Set This House on Fire is a story of evil and redemption involving thr...

The "magnificent" Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times –bestselling novel about the preacher who led America's bloodiest slave revolt ( The New York Times ).The Confessions of Nat Turner is William Styron's complex and richly drawn imagining of Nat Turner, the leader of the 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia that led to the deaths of almost sixty men, women, and ch...

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time"[One morning] in the early spring, I woke up with the remembrance of a girl I'd once known, Sophie. It was a very vivid half-dream, half-revelation, and all of a sudden I realized that hers was a story I had to tell." That very day, William Styron began writing the first chapter of Sophie's Choice.First published in 1979, this complex and ambitious novel opens with Stingo, a young south...

"Thoughtful, candid" essays from the National Book Award–winning and #1 New York Times –bestselling author of Sophie's Choice ( The Christian Science Monitor ).This Quiet Dust is a compilation of William Styron's nonfiction writings that confront significant moral questions with precision and vigor. He examines topics as diver...