What Happened to Sophie Wilder

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Charlie 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.Review"What Happened to Sophie Wilder is about many things—the New York publishing world, the growing pains of post collegiate life, the rigors of Roman Catholicism—but at its center its a moving meditation on why and for whom we write." —New York Times Book Review"In this smart short novel What Happened to Sophie Wilder by Christopher R. Beha, a young writer deals with the reappearance and disappearance of the woman he sometimes loved." —Oprah Magazine"What Happened to Sophie Wilder is a remarkable first novel, which should especially be read by those who have given up on contemporary literature. Along with giving them something good to read, it will renew their faith in what literature is capable of achieving." —Commentary“[T]his novel is excitingly alert . . . to the ways we understand life in terms of stories, in particular the stories we tell about other people - whether to keep them at a safe distance or to bring them closer to us. More, it's alert to our alertness of this. The story Beha tells about Charlie and Sophie is a convincing contemporary love story, not in spite of its sometimes dizzying self-awareness but, in large part, because of it.”—San Francisco Chronicle"Christopher Beha's What Happened to Sophie Wilder is a wonderful novel—smart, sly and lucid, a story about belief in all its forms that is wholly satisfying and quietly thrilling."—Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins"Beha's writing is clean, unpretentious, and commanding in its seeming simplicity. He knits Chralie and Sophie's stories together in a seamless, intricate weave, offering an exploration of just how powerful stories can be." —Foreword Magazine"A crisis of faith is key to the disappearance of a young woman in Christopher Beha’s What Happened to Sophie Wilder (Tin House), which deftly renders the competing impulses—creative, intellectual, emotional—of young writers in New York."—VogueChristopher Beha's short but intricately constructed first novel tells the story of two young writers struggling to discover their personal and professional identities, but it's not another excursion through the world of New York's literati. Instead, What Happened to Sophie Wilder is a somber character study focused on the problem of human suffering, the nature of religious belief and the acceptance of moral responsibility.—Shelf Awareness"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."—Publishers Weekly"Complex in structure, plot, and characterization, this promising debut will appeal to fans of literary fiction and the literary scene."—Booklist"Christopher R Beha's What Happened to Sophie Wilder manages, somehow,to read both like an auspicious debut and a veteran achievement: itoffers at once the vivid, old-fashioned pleasures of a classicbildungsroman and a frighteningly intelligent contemporary take on theambitions and limits of storytelling and faith. It's a glass-and-steelpenthouse on a foundation of oak, and the most memorable first novelI've read in some time."—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of DirectionWhat Happened to Sophie Wilder is an old fashioned literary novel inthe very best sense--thoughtful and intellectual, moving andwell-wrought. Like its restless, yearning characters, it's not afraidof the big questions, God and love, work and love, friendship andlove, and yet the solace this impressive debut finds lies as deeply inthe page as in the flesh or the spirit. Beha has managed to produce abook that is satisfying for anyone who reads in order to live."—Helen Schulman, author of This Beautiful Life"What Happened to Sophie Wilder is an imperishable gift ofstorytelling, a novel built sturdily of wisdom, beauty, and love.Christopher R. Beha writes with Jamesian sophistication about theenduring enigma of our inner lives, and the result is a titlecharacter who will dwell in you always." —William Giraldi, author of Busy Monsters"It takes courage to write a book placing sincere religious feelings at the very center of contemporary young, urban life. Chris Beha--a writer mature beyond his years--has done just that in What Happened to Sophie Wilder, a modern fable of faith and doubt, ambition and love, written with tender sentiment and striking moral intelligence. Open this book and you'll find the grain of our talk and the soul of our thought rendered at once exotic and utterly recognizable.—Jon Raymond, author of Rain DragonAbout the AuthorChristopher R. Beha is an associate editor at Harper’s Magazine and the author of a memoir, The Whole Five Feet. He contributes frequently to the New York Times Book Review. What Happened to Sophie Wilder is his first novel.