What Happened to Sophie Wilder by Christopher R. Beha

by Christopher R. Beha

Publication June 12, 2012Charlie Blakeman is living in New York, on Washington Square, struggling to write his second novel and floundering, when his college love, Sophie Wilder, returns to his life. Sophie, too, is struggling, though Charlie isn’t sure why. They’ve spoken only rarely since falling out a decade before. Now Sophie begins to tell Charlie the story of her life since then, particularly the days she spent taking care of a dying man with his own terrible past and the difficult decision he presented her with. When Sophie once again abruptly disappears, Charlie sets out to discover what happened to Sophie Wilder.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Book Club, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Literature, Novels

Paperback

First published May 29, 2012

Reviews

[christa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Curses. Right now I’m sitting here wishing that I was in a book club that just finished reading “What Happened to Sophie Wilder” by Christopher R. Beha instead of not being in a book club and having just finished reading “What Happened to Sophie Wilder” by Christopher R. Beha. Alone. In a bathrobe. While my boyfriend is lying on the couch next to me, in the early chapters of “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn.

There are so many things I want to talk about. I want to deconstruct characters, especially Sophie. I want to talk about the way Beha writes about religion. I want to talk about dramatic quotes. I want to spoil the ending. (I won’t). You know how some people associate numbers with color? When I think of this book I see a thick hearty sandwich with prettily layered ingredients where every flavor is distinct and fresh and really pops.

When the novel opens, Charlie Blakeman is 10 years removed from college but still living in this kind of post-college in-between zone filled with parties and pretentious banter. He lives with his cousin Max, a film critic for an alt weekly. Charlie has just gotten a novel published -- one of those thinly veiled memoirs -- and instead of landing with a thud it blew into the world and out the back door without notice. He’s struggling to write his next book. Then: In walks Sophie.

They met in a college writing class and she was the star pupil. Instead of passing around six-page short stories for critique, she plops down 75 pages of well-considered plot. Sophie and Charlie develop a friendship -- sometimes more than friendship -- and act as slow dancing muses for each other. They have a falling out and never recover. It’s been more than a decade since they spent any significant time together. If she can sit still long enough, this might change.

So what happened to Sophie Wilder? Well. She got married to Tom, a vanilla law school dolt. She wrote and published a promising book. Mostly, though, she converted to Catholicism and retired from the writing game. And fairly recently she took on nursing her husband’s estranged and ailing father as he waited to die -- even though she, too, is now estranged from said husband.

Charlie’s story is told in first person in alternating chapters with Sophie’s, who gets third person treatment. Charlie tries to weave his way back into Sophie’s life when he has the microphone, Sophie’s story is about becoming a devout Catholic and caring for Bill Crane.  

Beha has created an interesting dichotomy between Charlie, lapsed Catholic, and Sophie, who is living in a way that is 100 percent in compliance with the Pope. Beha handles her conversion and lifestyle in a way that is very tender, well considered, genuine and not at all the caricature it could have become. In one scene, Charlie thinks about when Sophie told him that she had tried to save Bill Crane’s soul.

“I couldn’t quite take it seriously. I’d been raised more or less Catholic myself, gone to Catholic school my whole life … but I don’t think I knew a single person who would have spoken in that way about saving someone’s soul. The religious people I knew talked about their faith apologetically. It was an embarrassment to their own reason and intelligence, but somehow a necessary one. Their justification often suggested something vaguely therapeutic. They needed a sense of meaning in their lives. They wanted to believe that things happened for a reason. To speak of souls and damnation, to speak of intervening in another life for the sake of salvation, was beyond all of this.”

There are things I don’t like about this book. Most importantly, Charlie Blakeman is a sad sack little loser. He’s easily molded into submission by the wild child Sophie, who recreationally bangs other dudes not quite with his permission but with his understanding that if he wants to be with her he has to sign off on her rules. Of course, this might be worth it. Sophie is a really great character who teaches him a lot about literature and, artistically, they feed off each other (and booze and cigarettes). Together they make a really nice aesthetic of what you hope college will be like: Two people creating and getting bigger and better. Ultimately Charlie does stand up to her when she does something pretty unforgivable. Still, he forgives his cousin -- the other half of the unforgivable act.

Also: There are some wide load gestures with Sophie as a Christ-like character. There is a sponge bath scene where she washes away Mr. Crane’s messy accident and in another scene she feeds him his pain pills in a way that smacks of communion. This is goes just a millimeter too close to getting walloped with a bible.

None of these grievances are distracting enough to take away from the fact that this is a lovely book and a truly unique story.

[El Convincente · Rating 3 out of 5]

Al leer el agradecimiento final del autor a su editora no he podido evitar pensar que la novela podría haber sido verdaderamente memorable si hubiese pasado por las manos de uno de esos editores míticos de la estirpe de Maxwell Perkins. Porque tener, tiene elementos interesantes, pero resulta un tanto desvaída.

[Christina “6 word reviewer” Lake]

I have to break my modus operandi because I can’t review this book in six words, and I can’t stay silent about it, either. It really bugged me. But not because I think that Beha is a poor writer—on the contrary, I could not put the book down and read it within a few hours. (This is not common for me at all). The subject matter is intensely interesting to me, and the prose is sophisticated, beautiful. But what bugs me is that this is a novel that is, at least in part, about a woman’s conversion to Catholicism, and Beha seems to me quite literally to be unable to imagine why a talented and beautiful young woman would want to convert. Now let me be clear: I can understand why Beha’s stand-in for himself (Charlie Blakeman) never could get his mind wrapped around the mystery of Sophie, and that is fine. Then he should have stuck to the first person point of view and not tried to tell the story from Sophie’s perspective at all. In short, the third person omniscient perspective on Sophie made little sense to me: how can someone obviously so smart and observant seem only to have vaguely T.S. Eliot-like reasons for so significant a life change? That is Blakeman’s view, not anyone who would actually convert.

[Annalynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its taken me almost two months to make my way through this book - I didn't like it at all for 90% of the book. Maybe I'm getting lazy in my middle age, but I'm not very fond of books jumping through time, switching narrators, switching narrative styles, and then opening new chapters without any explanation as to when you are setting the chapter. Its clearly a popular writing technique these days, but I find it confusing, and distracting from the writing and the story. I also didn't like Sophie, nor did I really care for Charlie. And having just slaved my way through A Visit With The Goon Squad, I was afraid I was 0-2 with unlikable characters and writing styles.

This being said, something happens in the last few chapters that blew me away, and totally made me go back and re-evaluate what I had been reading. And something miraculous happened to me - my opinion of the book changed. Like that. I understood why the narrators changed, why we moved from first person to third person, and back again. What had been driving me crazy, I began to see as genius. Without giving away too many spoilers, for the haters out there who gave up, its worth reading it through the end. The last line that Sophie ever speaks to Charlie is so telling, and I'm glad I stuck with the book. Sad I couldn't make my book club discussion of the book, though, because I'm now dying to talk about it with folks.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews, but I was so astonished by some of the bad ones that I felt compelled to say something. I loved this book. I have read it at least three times, maybe more, since it came out. It was one of those books where I was pleasantly surprised to find that it more than lived up to the hype surrounding its release. I went to something like three bookstores to find it, and finally cracked and bought the Kindle version after reading the sample. I read it all that night and cried (seriously) when I looked down and realized I had read 90% of it. And then I bought it in book format. So it's safe to say I really enjoyed this book, and thought it deserved every glowing critical review it received. And as a writer, I thought that it perfectly captured what it is to be a writer in a way that managed not to feel precious.

That said, I know some people didn't. I've heard people whose opinion I respect tell me that they didn't like it, that Charlie was too whiny, etc, and I see some of those comments echoed here. And I'm not sure why that is, but now I think it may be because a lot of those people? Weren't writers. So now I'm curious. Did anyone really love this book that wasn't a writer? And if not, does that say something really revealing about writers, or just me?

[Núria · Rating 4 out of 5]

El título de 'Qué fue de Sophie Wilder' es bastante inequívoco; tal como se puede adivinar, la novela trata de averiguar qué le pasó a Sophie Wilder, qué le llevó a pasar de ser una escritora prometedora llena de vida y entusiasmo, a convertirse en alguien desengañado y sin ninguna ilusión. Pero una transformación parecida le pasa también a Charlie, el personaje que intenta averiguar qué fue de Sophie Wilder; así, Charlie pasa de ser un idealista a ser un cínico que no se toma en serio en nada y que se escuda detrás de una ironía amarga, aunque en el fondo probablemente desearía poder volver a una época en que había cosas que sí que tenían importancia e ideas que se podían defender de forma ardiente. En el fondo se trata de la transformación universal del postadolescente idealista en el joven desengañado al que ya le toca entrar en la madurez.

Sophie y Charlie se conocen en la universidad y les gusta regalarse principios de historias, ya que comparten una pasión indomable por crear y escribir historias, hasta el punto que acaban confundiendo realidad y ficción. Su relación es tan intensa que les conlleva aislarse del mundo y, al ser tan intensa, inevitablemente se acaba rompiendo, porque los límites empiezan a ser difusos y la dependencia limitadora. Diez años después, se reencuentran y las cosas han cambiado mucho. Charlie, una vez más, jugará a inventarse una historia sobre Sophie, a la vez que Sophie inventa una historia sobre el moribundo padre de su marido, un hombre solitario y con muchos secretos. A veces, inventar historias puede ser un acto liberador que nos acerque a la verdad, pero otras veces buscar la verdadera historia puede llegar a destruirnos.

La novela es un juego de espejos entre realidad y ficción, una acumulación de relatos en forma de muñecas rusas, un laberinto narrativo muy interesante y veraz. 'Qué fue de Sophie Wilder' es rabiosamente contemporánea pero a la vez tiene un aroma de novela clásica, una novela sobre el fin de las ilusiones de la juventud, sobre amores perdidos irrecuperables, sobre una pasión desmedida por la literatura, sobre la fe religiosa como intento de dar sentido a la vida, sobre expectativas no cumplidas y fracasos amargos, sobre el vacío de la realidad frente al poder de la ficción. Se trata, pues, de una novela muy muy recomendable, escrita con agilidad y desenfado, pero también sinceridad y emoción.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

2021 reread: Absolutely wonderful book; very little new to say except that I found it a little sad to return to with the young-catholic-sphere online I was just getting acquainted with during my first read kind of scattered to the four winds in the intervening years. (The book is, of course, its own lesson in the interplay between the hothouse communities of your twenties and the slower and more deliberate world you pass through them into.)

In 2013, or whenever it was I first read this, Sophie's conversion felt extremely modern. Already now there's something slightly quaint about it—in spite of everything else it is her blessing that she does not have to think at all about the political valence of putting the Vatican Flag emoji in your bio, or what cottagecore is, etc. This quaintness is now built pleasantly into the structure of Beha's universe after he committed, in 2020's The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, to all the people in his novels still using something called "Teeser" that is kind of but not quite like Twitter.
---
[Original review] A really thoughtful, moving, ambitious novel about the necessity for belief, and the risks and dangers of achieving it. It addresses a lot of aspects of contemporary life that novels often don't while also acknowledging how strange that ground feels to the contemporary people living it.

Also a master class in how to write about writers without sounding like a self-involved jackass--the narrator's unpleasant realizations about his own first novel, with its ennui-laden New York parties and pot-hazy navel-gazing, are like a scared-straight film for recently minted MFAs.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book both because a trusted friend highly recommended it to me and because it was published by my new publisher, Tin House. It's a treat to read a novel that is simply different from the regular run of fiction, however excellent, that fills one's reading days. Sophie Wilder is brief and the prose is unshowy (sometimes sliding into unexpected loveliness) but the intention and the intelligence behind the work is unabashedly serious. Charlie Blakeman, the 28-year-old narrator, meets Sophie Wilder when they are college freshmen, and they form a deep friendship based on their passion for reading and writing and (less reliably) each other's bodies. Sophie is an elusive type, prone to emotional and physical disappearing acts. Eventually she and Charlie have a falling out, and when Sophie next appears in his life she has married and converted to Catholicism. The questions at play--what are the demands of religious faith? What do they have to do with invention and the imagination? Are they compatible with earthly happiness?--unravel throughout the remainder of the novel. The last pages dramatically reconfigure everything that comes before--not an easy feat to pull off.

[Margaret Gipson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be a disappointing read. The author and I appear to have several common interests, but he didn't talk about them here in ways I found interesting. For example, Sophie's conversion was so full of exposition (here's how you convert to Catholicism if you're an intellectual!) that I had a hard time caring. For a character-driven novel I felt like I had little understanding of the characters, particularly Sophie, who was an enigma to me, and not in a cool way. I felt mystified by her actions, but little desire to muse about them.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars ⭐️

[Tl Wagener · Rating 2 out of 5]

This author is a beautiful writer -- he obviously cares very much about all the words and sentences he offers. He might be a little too much in love with his own process, however. His story and characters need more color and energy. Some of the most important events happen "off-screen," (SPOILERS: Examples -- the aquarium, what actually happened to Sophie Wilder) There is no conversation re the clippings with Bill Crane or Tom -- where is that? We need to be there for these events. Charlie's non-reaction to SW's final choice is confusing. More words are spent on his visit to the convent than his arrival home.

I suspect "confrontation" is not something this writer does very much in his life. (Pardon the armchair therapy.) Once he has a little more life under his belt, these essential scenes might make an appearance. They need to.

The book, itself, is gorgeous, and I commend Tin House for the product.

I have read both books from this writer, and my best counsel would be -- get out and live more. A life of the mind begets thoughtful prose, but we want to get out of our heads and out of your head and into new and remarkable worlds.

I admit: I skipped all the parts about Catholicism. I suspect you might have to be Catholic to have them resonate. If you don't know NYC, you might skip some of the detailed walks, too.

I will read more from this writer. He'll get better. As his life goes on, I have no doubt he'll have more adventures, and turn them into fiction.

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Christopher Beha's What Happened to Sophie Wilder is a well-written and intriguing, if not entirely enjoyable, meditation on creativity, faith, relationships, and coming to terms with one's demons. It tells the story of Charlie Blakeman, a young writer living in New York City, who is struggling to write his second novel, one he hopes will be more successful—and altogether better—than his first.

While a creative writing student in college, he met a fellow writer named Sophie Wilder. More talented and more driven than Charlie, Sophie recommended books for him to read, and she provided a great deal of creative inspiration for him. They spent much of their college days together, reading, writing, walking, and creating threads of stories that each would try to make something of. The two became romantically involved, although Sophie's attentions would wane from time to time, but she'd inevitably return to Charlie. But when a situation causes them to have a more permanent falling out, they go their separate ways, and although Charlie would see Sophie from time to time, they never really spoke for the rest of college.

Nearly a decade later, Sophie returns to Charlie's life, her marriage ended, and armed with a story of how she spent time caring for a dying man with his own secrets. During their time apart, Sophie converted to Catholicism and began attending mass on a daily basis; she looked to the church to provide her guidance and strength. But despite Charlie's wishes, Sophie isn't willing to pick up where they left off, and when she disappears again, Charlie goes looking for her, in an effort to better understand the woman he has always loved.

This book wasn't quite what I expected; at the start it seemed like it would be more of a story about the desire to write, the need for notoriety and literary renown. It became more of a book about a writer who lacks true motivation and inspiration to write, pursuing the one troubled woman who got away. And while this would be a fine story in principle, Sophie's character doesn't show very much emotion, even to Charlie, so it's difficult to understand why so many people fell under her spell. I was interested in knowing how the story would resolve, but found myself wishing it would move faster. I also felt that the book ended rather abruptly.

Christopher Beha is a very talented writer and he addresses the themes of creativity, unrequited love, and faith quite adeptly. I just wish the characters he created had a little more depth, and were a little more likeable.

[James Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope it’s not cliché if I say this novel felt to be a fitting continuation of folks like Mauriac, Greene, O’Connor, and Walker Percy. I don’t mean to pigeonhole it with that—just to say I felt that the book did justice to the complexities and ambiguities of both faith and doubt, to what Charles Taylor describes as the “cross-pressure” of our secular age. The end of the story heartbreakingly inhabits that space without letting us off the hook. And I’ll be honest: page 133 is going to make a regular appearances in talks I give around the country (with due acknowledgement, of course), and probably into my next editorial for Comment magazine.

I loved the light-handed but suggestive architectonic of the book (The Stars Above/The Law Within)—but I suppose philosophers are not exactly representative readers. However, I also appreciate Beha's psychological sympathy, the generosity of his voice when letting us peek into the hearts and minds of his characters. (There was just one point where Crane felt a little deus ex machina, but that vanished as his character developed.) I’m also envious of Beha's ability to craft the sorts of pregnant lines that do so much with so little, like: “If I could be just one thing now, that would be it: someone going somewhere with Sophie Wilder;” or “She only nodded in response, as if to say: I know he did; that’s why I found you.” Gold.

I am unofficially declaring this the companion novel to How (Not) To Be Secular. ;-)

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this recently and don't remember what it was about. Oh, right, it's about a guy drifting though life who runs into his former college girlfriend. During college, they would walk for hours in NYC making up elaborate stories for their future best-selling novels. She got published and became semi-famous. He got published and became unknown. She marries and finds Catholicism. He drifts some more. Several years pass and they meet again at a party. It's destiny, he thinks, yet ultimately, not the destiny he wants. The books goes back and forth in time, every other chapter telling the story of the girl, Sophie, and the years in between college and the party.

At times, the book is more of an internal discussion about life, love and remembrances than a story with dialogue and action. It's well-written, if muted and "meh". There was a potential section where I perked up from the doldrums and thought, wow, this just gave the entire story new meaning, but it was just my wishful thinking. A borderline two/three star.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

(SEMI-SPOILER ALERT for the second paragraph, here!)

It's unusual for such a literary book, with similarly "literary" characters (i.e, young, somewhat bohemian intellectuals, in this case) to discuss religious faith so intelligently, sensitively, honestly, respectfully and movingly. As someone who underwent a similar religious experience as Sophie, albeit at the much younger age of 12, I found the description of it to be spot-on.

I confess I am a bit confused and mystified about the chronology/timeline of the last chapter. Was Sophie turned away at the abbey? That's what I assume happened. How many days elapsed between that time and her final call to Charlie? I would love to discuss this, with some people who have read it.

[Kerri Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story was hard for me to get into. The first part of the story was slow.... And it was almost frustrating at times to understand the relationships which were important in the story. The second half of the book I couldn't put it down. Things start to come together and you are left feeling more satisfied with the new information given by the author. The story is also told in an alternating fashion between past and present between chapters until they merge, or so it seemed. I would love to hear the perspective from others on the ending. A lot is left to the reader to determine reality from just another story that the characters were writing.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was unlike any book I have ever read before. When I finished it, I sat for a very long time thinking about the ending, and all the pieces that came together. To say this was well-crafted is an understatement. It also contains plenty of ambiguity, which is what makes good literature. This is one book I wish I had read in a class where I could discuss it with others...that good, that complex, that compelling. I am happy to say I have Behe's memoir here to read, which also promises to bring many gifts.

[Sandra · Rating 1 out of 5]

Guess it is just me because I read the first 25 reviews and everyone liked this book. Three, four, five stars. I never could get 'into the book' and never picked it up off the table looking forward to turning the pages and finishing it. I thought Sophie was shallow, self centered and just disappeared whenever it was convenient. Poor Charlie was in love with a ghost! The ending was depressing and sad. Definitely not a summer read!

[Bonnie Berry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have liked this book better if I did not dislike the character of Sophie so much.

[Nuria Castaño monllor · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,8.
Me ha gustado mucho la segunda parte

[A. Stewart · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book left a bad taste in my mouth the whole way through. There were a few lines of text that I liked, but otherwise I felt that a book chronicling a woman's conversion to Catholicism should not also include frequent mention of smoking joints, lots of casual "f---ing" and blaspemy, and descriptions of various persons' pubic hair. I got the feeling I get when watching movies that Hollywood thinks we common folk are only engaged and entertained when the actors are coarse and crude, stoned and shocking. I am thankful that the book reminded me why it is better to stick to the tried and true classics....

[Judith Hannan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Happened to Sophie Wilder covers a lot of territory--relationships, coming-of-age, family, jealousy, faith, right and wrong/good and evil. When listed like that, it would be easy to think this was a large, far ranging book. Instead, it is intimate and precise, characters and situations serving multiple purposes, particularly Charlie and Sophie around whom the story revolves.

I had a hard time entering the story at first, which alternates between the present, when Charlie encounters his former lover, Sophie; and the past, when the two first meet in college. Despite the fact that I like spare writing, I felt there was a little too much left out, too much space between what the reader is being told and what is being asked to presume or suppose. But about halfway through the book, the author, Christopher R. Beha, finally draws one into Sophie's inner mind. It is an intriguing place to be as we go through her conversion to Catholicism and how this dictates her actions throughout the rest of the book.

It is not a spoiler, I don't think, to say the drama revolves around Sophie caring for her dying father-in-law whom she had never met. If for no other reason, this book is worth reading for the way Beha takes us through the final minutes of life: "Sometimes it seemed that he wasn't there inside, that she was watching a husk from which he had already escaped. But he had moments, sudden bursts of startling lucidity, when he came back fully into himself. She wondered if these times felt to him like small islands of consciousness surrounded by hours of floating, if he had the sensation of coming up for air, or if those brief moments were all that existed for him, the stretches between them striking him as dreams or not at all." And when he dies, "Sophie kneeled alone beside the pile of flesh that Bill Crane had left behind and tried again to pray."

This is also a book about writing and writers. The dynamic between Charlie and Sophie gets some of its tension from their differing talents as writers--Sophie being more naturally gifted than Charlie but also the one who stops writing when she doesn't see a point in it anymore since it is not a practical skill. "What have you got when it's done? You can't sit on it, no matter how sturdy it is." When Charlie counters that you have made a work of beauty, Sophie responds, "Beauty can only be arrived at while meeting some real need."

There are other characters in this book whose role it is to tip the lives of Charlie and Sophie in one direction or another. They can seem minor but they have profound impact.

What Happened to Sophie Wilder seems, at first, like simple and straightforward narrative, but it is just odd enough to keep your mind and emotions traveling in not often entered territory.

But, as the title implies, the point is what happens to Sophie. Because of my personal interest in how faith effects actions and how some people are "struck" by faith, I wanted to know what happened to her. Even by the end, where we are given a physical resolution, a fully satisfying answer is never actually given. And I think this is as it should be.

[Jayme Pendergraft · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a perfect book. I almost didn't read it. I almost let my library ebook version expire because who wants to read another novel about rich twenty somethings in NYC? Been there, done that.

I'm so glad I gave it a chance.

Sophie and Charlie may not be the most likable characters, but they are just trying to get through life, making mistakes and probably focusing a bit too much on the past, the minute details that probably wouldn't normally matter but in the end were everything. Sure, Charlie is whiney and Sophie is untouchable, unreachable, somewhat of a phantom, but I think deep down we can relate to both of them.

The idea of writing other people's stories is prevalent throughout this novel and that theme left me with a great deal of questions about the end. What happened to Sophie Wilder? I'm not sure we really find out.

This is so much more than rich kids popping pills in New York. This is the beautiful story of two lives, and the ripples they send throughout the lives of the people who touch them. Sophie and Charlie are writing their stories and I'm so glad Beha shared them with the rest of us.

This book made me do two things- one is this review, which I do not usually do. I felt the need to stand up for Sophie and try to draw others in a bit more than the meager goodreads description or reviews that are concerned mainly with the Catholicism (yes, it's there and yes it's important, but that's who Sophie is and this book needs it). I just want to encourage others to read this beautiful book.

The second thing that I've done is gone straight to Barnes and Noble and ordered a copy- I can't wait to read this again- this time in real book form so I can underline and write notes in the margins. I'll be sure to take the dust jacket off to add to the allure- as Sophie says "There was something beautiful and timeless to her about a hardback without its jacket, a book that could be known in no way except by reading it."

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, Beha's writing is impeccable. There isn't a misstep here. His style isn't overly descriptive or flowery; it's more spare and measured. Even so, we get a full picture of each scene. Second, the themes are interesting, especially if you enjoy reading (there's quite a bit about the power of story and lots of references to authors and writing) and if you are interested in Catholicism or religious conversion in general. In addition, the author captures the nearly universal feeling that recent college graduates seem to have while at the same time creating multi-dimensional characters. Third, the development of Sophie's interactions with Tom's father is handled nicely. My only criticisms are that it's a little difficult to see why Sophie has such a hold over Charlie; their relationship feels very unbalanced. Still, most of us have experienced that sort of thing and it feels authentic in the book. It simply made her a little less likable. Also, some might think that the plot moves a tiny bit slowly, especially around the middle of the book. It didn't necessarily bother me because overall I thought the plot development was good. The scenes where we go back in time are seamless and integrate well within the larger story. It's not difficult to keep things straight. I think part of the reason might be the length of the flashbacks; they aren't too long so we don't forget that we are looking backwards in time. In summary, this is a good story that kept my interest and it's written in a beautiful style.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of two literary types who meet in college and form a bond based on their love of writing and their desire to produce something meaningful. The male protagonist, Charlie, is not very fleshed-out, almost just a sounding board for Sophie's character. While they both drift away from writing, they reunite after several years, as Sophie seeks out Charlie for closure. I don't want to spoil the ending. What do you think about books where there are jumps in time and narrative point of view? Is it lovely, or is it ultimately sleight of hand to conceal weak story-telling? I'm not sure. I can say that this book has a very different 'feel' than most of what I've read recently. It reminded me of Gatsby, with the cover of everyday life pulled back to reveal emptiness and despair. "There was a world inside the world,like the secret station beneath City Hall. Behind the visible lay the true nature of things. In that secret world, things were free. Perhaps the body was not a cage that held the soul, but a hand that gripped it like a cane, appearing to guide it, to command it, but all the while dependent upon it, gripping it all the tighter the more that it needed it, finally letting it go."

While God was present, He didn't seem to provide peace or comfort, dispelled no turmoil, just appeared in a deeper way than the rest of mundane existence. Someone to wrestle with, but not rest in.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. Three stars for the experience of reading the book--the disjointed narrative, the too convenient plot points (it's not that any one event strains credibility, but more the aggregate effect of too many unlikely turns building upon each other without sufficient support from the narrative), and the bare bones style of having every scene end as soon as it possibly can. Four stars for the experience of thinking about the book, and the many interesting ideas it contains about writing, about idealism, about commitment to one's principles, about randomness and consequence, about theory vs. practice, and about probably a million other things if I let myself sit here coming up with them.

While I wanted this novel to be much longer than it was, with a lot more detail covering the gaps in the timeline (and specifically, their senior year in college during the post-Charlie, pre-Tom interval), I felt I knew these two central characters well. I was less sure of how they truly felt about each other, and that's what I would've loved to see more of. But for a novel to take on big ideas, handle them well, and also provide solid characterization and a plot that easily holds the reader's attention--those are pretty big accomplishments indeed.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story of twenty-somethings in New York, affluent yet at a loss as to what to do with their lives, is beautifully written, and definitely thought-provoking. What drives us day after day, what is the moral thread running through our lives, are we even aware of one these days?

For Sophie, Charlie and Max, three close friends trying to make sense of their lives, these are questions as challenging as the questions Job asks of God in the Bible. Charlie's point of view is the most intimate, told in the first person. Other sections, in the third person viewpoints of Sophie and Max, are more distanced from the reader, until we are seeing the denouement through Sophie's eyes. It was challenging to follow the shifts in time. Perhaps a little too much literary artfulness for my taste, distracting from the story itself. I prefer to enter the world of the characters and stay there, empathizing with their struggles.

The prose is polished and some of the sentences are quite beautiful, but after spending hours with a book, I like to feel uplifted. Maybe I missed something, but this one didn't do that for me. I'm disappointed.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It is a great story with big religious and philosophical ideas fit into a never quite there relationship. Beha is a wonderful writer and he is young which means we have years of books to look forward to. Beha writes with soft and sensitive humour but with that trace of 21st century bemusement that some younger authors I have read reflect. That not quite connecting Woody Allen awkwardness while pursuing large ideas in small places is something that works for me. He also presents this story in a mysterious and suspensful way. This style reminds me a little of Paul Auster as does the Auster way Beha reveals his characters. Auster is one of my favorite novelists and one to which I compare most writers except the very greats like Margaret Atwood.

[William Mcpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intelligent, provocative, complex but with a narrative that keeps one turning the pages. You do want to know what happened to Sophie Wilder and why, and to the sometimes first-person narrator, Charlie Blakeman, too. This is one of the few novels that makes writing about writing interesting. It's also one of the few novels these days that takes religious faith and belief seriously. I'd give it five stars but I reserve that rating for Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, and so on.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant, tragic, engrossing story.

This is not an easy read, but it is well-crafted. Perhaps it is a bit frustrating at the end, where the reader is left wondering about the specific details of Sophie's actions and how we end up at the resolution of 3 chapters previous. Nonetheless, it is not so open to interpretation that other outcomes are possible.

This is a sad story of unrealuzed potential and the tragedy - both immediate and collateral - of our choices; so reader beware!