This recording is a complete and utter success if for no other reason than it makes you almost (almost) forget about Meryl Streep's tragic performance in the film version. It follows, then, that the person responsible for this success is narrator William Hope. He does a masterful job acting, not merely reading, Styron's extraordinary novel. Hope's portrayal of the trio of characters is true and explicit--Southern Stingo, Brooklynite Nathan, and Polish Sophie. Hope's voice embraces these people and destroys their facades to expose all the emotion, pathos, and humanity they can exude. He also transitions from one character to the next flawlessly, using almost perfect diction and pacing. It is entirely possible to hear every word in the book.

In this extraordinary novel, Stingo, the narrator,takes us back to the summer of 1*47 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.