Pulitzer novelist
Styron dies at 81
'Sophie's Choice' became a movie
William Styron, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose novel "Sophie's Choice" was made into an acclaimed movie, died yesterday on the Massachusetts resort island of Martha's Vineyard.
He was 81.
The author died of pneumonia at Martha's Vineyard Hospital, his daughter Alexandra Styron said.
Styron was a Virginia native whose obsessions with race, class and personal guilt led to such tormented narratives as "Lie Down in Darkness" and "The Confessions of Nat Turner," a fictional account of the leader of an 1831 slave rebellion.
The 1967 novel won the Pulitzer despite protests that the book was racist and inaccurate.
His best-known book was 1979's "Sophie's Choice," the tragic story of a Polish Holocaust survivor.
It was made into a movie with Meryl Streep, who won an Oscar for best actress, and then into an opera by Nicholas Maw, which had its U.S. premiere in September.
Styron's other works included "The Long March," "Set This House on Fire," "A Tidewater Morning," "This Quiet Dust" and the best-selling memoir "Darkness Visible," in which Styron recalled nearly taking his own life.
Styron is survived by his wife, Rose; daughters Alexandra, Susanna and Paola; son Thomas, and eight grandchildren.
I think he was a great writer but I will never read Sophie's Choice again. It was horrifying and hearbreaking and I thought I was going to break in two when reading the pivotal scene.
__________________ Comic Barry Crimmins was asked, "Since you criticize the USA so much, why don't you go live somewhere else?" His response would be, "What? And be a vicitim of American foreign policy?"
"Sophie's Choice" Author William Styron Dies
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