[Much of Sophie's Choice is concerned with Sophie's experiences in Auschwitz-Birkenau] and the diabolical choice she is forced to make there. There is another, sunnier subplot, concerning Stingo's efforts to rid himself of his virginity, which shows that Styron can do superbly what the young Philip Roth did well…. Some reviewers have taken exception with the manner of the narration of this novel. Stingo tells the story in the first-person, and the telling of them usually seems to be contemporary with the events themselves. There are exceptions when the narrator anachronistically introduces reflections on recent studies of the 'Holocaust' and on history, and some readers found these occasions disturbing. I did not, and can only defend them by saying I thought they made the texture of the novel richer, and perhaps provided a necessary bit of aesthetic distance, which is still as necessary for a serious novel dealing with the concentration camps as it is for one dealing with the death camps. Sophie's Choice is a thoroughly successful effort, and it was worth Styron's taking over ten years to complete it. (p. 14)