Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Prose
Review: Although Styron has been influenced by classic novelists such as Faulkner and Joyce, he has improved upon that from which he has borrowed. He has raised the standards of classic literature. Styron's language is of the most beautiful I have ever read. His prose is often poetic and melodic. Furthermore, his characterization, namely of Peyton, is especially well-developed. Lie Down in Darkness, like Styron's other novels, is a work of art.
Rating:
Summary: Human fallibility, pain, and loss
Review: Early in William Styron's novel Lie Down in Darkness the reader is introduced to a man, Milton Loftis, at the train station. Milton is a good allusion; whatever paradise this man has hoped for in life, it has been lost. How? There, I think, is the essential question that drives this novel. How do we bring ourselves to lose things we charish? How does this happen? It's a deep and heartbreaking question, and it may leave many people unable to read this book. This is understandable, but reading this novel, though the author's first novel and somewhat experimental, allows one to view the depths of human suffering, and perhaps provides ways to avoid it.
Rating:
Summary: Human fallibility, pain, and loss
Review: Early in William Styron's novel Lie Down in Darkness the reader is introduced to a man, Milton Loftis, at the train station. Milton is a good allusion; whatever paradise this man has hoped for in life, it has been lost. How? There, I think, is the essential question that drives this novel. How do we bring ourselves to lose things we charish? How does this happen? It's a deep and heartbreaking question, and it may leave many people unable to read this book. This is understandable, but reading this novel, though the author's first novel and somewhat experimental, allows one to view the depths of human suffering, and perhaps provides ways to avoid it.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully-written but not flawless
Review: It should come as no surprise that Lie Down in Darkness is beautifully written, given who wrote it. It's a slow read at the beginning, gradually picking up steam as the story progresses. At its best, Styron manages to capture the electrical emotions of his deeply-troubled family. Yet for some reason he does not provide us with a reason, or some explanation for the parents' many flaws: why did Helen Loftis grow up hating men so much?; why did Milton Loftis feel the need to drown his sorrows in alcohol? Answers, or at least, a casual addressing of these questions would have improved the readers understanding of these complex individuals. The novel builds to a lyrical and almost dream-like conclusion ... but I could have done without the fifty-page interlude into Peyton's stream of conscious.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully-written but not flawless
Review: It should come as no surprise that Lie Down in Darkness is beautifully written, given who wrote it. It's a slow read at the beginning, gradually picking up steam as the story progresses. At its best, Styron manages to capture the electrical emotions of his deeply-troubled family. Yet for some reason he does not provide us with a reason, or some explanation for the parents' many flaws: why did Helen Loftis grow up hating men so much?; why did Milton Loftis feel the need to drown his sorrows in alcohol? Answers, or at least, a casual addressing of these questions would have improved the readers understanding of these complex individuals. The novel builds to a lyrical and almost dream-like conclusion ... but I could have done without the fifty-page interlude into Peyton's stream of conscious.
Rating:
Summary: Dark and beautiful
Review: Lie Down in Darkness is not a great book. But it is a very good one, and shows how William Styron, even in his youth was a talented and perceptive writer. This novel begins with the death of Peyton Loftis, and goes back in time to follow her childhood and coming of age, as well as her eventual marriage, until her death. We see these pictures through the alternating points of view mostly of her father and mother, but also of some other characters, and learn how her death was inextricably related to the slow attrition caused by stubborness, jealousy, and hate that tears apart her family. Darkness is everywhere in the novel, taking the form of guilt and personal failures that corrode the hearts of each character and make inevitable Peyton's tragic end. Indeed the predetermination is all the more evident, since we know from the very beginning that she has died. Although Sophie's Choice shows how much more polished (and more thoughtful too, perhaps) he has become as a writer, Styron's writing is beautiful, as are the characters and the story. This may not be a necessary read, and the beginning may be slow, but it was well worth my time.
Rating:
Summary: Dark and beautiful
Review: Lie Down in Darkness is not a great book. But it is a very good one, and shows how William Styron, even in his youth was a talented and perceptive writer. This novel begins with the death of Peyton Loftis, and goes back in time to follow her childhood and coming of age, as well as her eventual marriage, until her death. We see these pictures through the alternating points of view mostly of her father and mother, but also of some other characters, and learn how her death was inextricably related to the slow attrition caused by stubborness, jealousy, and hate that tears apart her family. Darkness is everywhere in the novel, taking the form of guilt and personal failures that corrode the hearts of each character and make inevitable Peyton's tragic end. Indeed the predetermination is all the more evident, since we know from the very beginning that she has died. Although Sophie's Choice shows how much more polished (and more thoughtful too, perhaps) he has become as a writer, Styron's writing is beautiful, as are the characters and the story. This may not be a necessary read, and the beginning may be slow, but it was well worth my time.
Rating:
Summary: Lie Down In Darkness perfects Southern Gothic
Review: Lie Down In Darkness, Styron's first novel, published when he was just 22, is a masterpiece of psychological realism and storytelling in the Southern Gothic tradition of Faulkner, Eudora Welty, and Flannery O'Conner. That it was created by such a young mind is testament to the author's genius; that it has yet to be rivaled as a stirring, oftentimes painful and disturbing portrait of a doomed family, is testament to the writing. Composed with thick, purposeful prose, heavy on similie, metaphor and description, the novel charts the rise and fall of the Loftis Family, an archetypal rendering of the Soutnern Gentry. We follow the tragic downfall of Milton, the drunken patriarch, Ellen, the frigid mother, and the two Loftis daughters, one born perfect, one born crippled. It is a novel of abundant ontological truth, which will reach in and strangle the unconscious sensibilities of almost any reader, regardless of background or predispotition. The novel's beauty ranks with the prose of Lawrence, the passion of Rimbaud and Kundera, the depth and spiritual metaphysics of Doestoyevsky; It is both story and case study. And ultimately we are shepherded through tragedy after tragedy into the climax--the suicide of the immeasurably beautiful and desired Peyton Loftis--as we walk moment to moment with her, peering inside the poisoned stream of consciousness that overwhelms and eventually claims her. Lie Down In Darkness belongs in the canon of Great American Masterpieces. It's significance has only begun to be understood.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, wrenching, impossible to put down.
Review: Never have I wanted to pound some sense into fictional characters as when I read William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness. The Loftiss family saga is sometimes hard to read because they hurt each other so easily and so often. But Styron's language is beautiful, and his understanding of the characters is deep. The account of Peyton's last day is especially heartbreaking and revealing. In short, this novel is one of my favorites simply because of its account of human frailty and the amazing way in which the story is told. Styron is one of the best.
Rating:
Summary: masterful depiction of downward spiral
Review: One of my favorite books. True depiction of depression.
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