I won Bill Styron’s heart (kinda) by making Southern-style Chicken and Dumplings for him, but this moment was at his Martha’s Vineyard home during one of his wife, Rose Styron’s famed lunches. He went up stairs to get his personal copy of Sophie’s Choice—a gift to us. When he slowly made his way down the stairs I couldn’t help seeing the image as a metaphor, as he descended into the final depression that ended his life.