South of Broad: A Novel
by Pat Conroy
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Book Summary Information
Author: Pat ConroyEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-05-04
ISBN: 0385344074
Number of pages: 544
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780385344074
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of South of Broad: A Novel
Book Review: South of Broad
Summary: 4 Stars
South of Broad
Pat Conroy
Book Review
Brief Synopsis:
South of Broad centers on a gossip columnist, Leopold Bloom King, as he narrates the story about his childhood home (Charleston, SC) and tells the tale of his family and friends in the late 1960's and the late 1980's. As a young adult, he befriends a variety of people--a black football coach's son, a brother and sister of a Charleston aristocrat, orphans who lived in the Appalachian Mountains, and a pair of twins Sheba and Trevor Poe who move in across the street.
The story alternates between 1969 and 1989 in quarters. The book starts with Leo as an 18-year old kid as he tells the story of his religious family, his brother Steven who committed suicide, and the life he is now living as an adult and has reflected on his life and tells his story. Still haunted by his brother's death and the fact that his wife Starla is borderline crazy and runs off whenever she sees fit, he explains his life with his friends and family as they deal with their own emotions, drama, and demons.
By 1989, Sheba is a successful actress and enlists Leo and their group of friends to find her missing gay brother at a time when San Francisco was ravaged with AIDS. When they get back to Charleston, each character struggles with issues and by the end of the book, some characters are tragically lost while others find salvation.
After having previously read Pat Conroy's "A Prince of Tides", I was expecting another phenomenal novel. The novel is extremely well written with beautiful language and the story has a lot of depth and texture; but at the same time, that's also its downfall. The other downfall is he took every human tragedy and put it in his novel. He covers everything from racism, homosexuality, vanity, deaths, suicides, psychopaths, rape, molestation, addiction, mental illness, crimes, nuns becoming wives, and extramarital affairs. You'd think that'd make for a great story, right? Wrong. It was simply too much to pack into a 500-page novel.
By the end of the book, the non-stop drama of these character's lives is simply exhausting. He glorified simple events, but downplayed the important ones. He wrote about a hurricane, yet I felt nothing. He wrote about AIDS and still felt nothing. He wrote about a priest who molested a child, two friends who have an affair, a brother who commits suicide, and white aristocrats who call black people "ni**ers", and yet I felt so detached from the characters and their issues. I almost felt like I was reading a script to a soap opera (which I absolutely abhor soap operas). It was so dramatic and over the top that I felt no emotional connection to any of the characters, with the exception of Trevor Poe (and that's only because we're both gay).
The relationships between the characters were often over dramatized--the dialogue between the characters felt scripted as if it were a soap opera, not like it was reflective of how Southern people talked in 1969-1989. Also, when Sheba comes back to Charleston from LA and asks her friends to fly to San Francisco for two weeks to find her brother (all the while Sheba's and Trevor's psychotic father has hunted them down and wants to murder them), they all agree to it! Keep in mind, most of these people have jobs, marriages, and kids, yet they agree to fly to California to find a friend and after Sheba's father attempts to hurt them, their only response is "I don't mind dying for you. I really don't. But I'd sure as hell like to know why." Don't get me wrong; I love my friends and family and for most of them, I would take a bullet for any of them. Although fiction is supposed to be dramatic, I thought this was a little extreme. Niles, the person with the quote I listed above, is married with children. Surely he wouldn't risk his life, even for a friend.
On the positive side, Pat Conroy is obviously an extremely talented writer with a passion for what he does. You can see it when you read his novels and you can hear it in the language he uses. Unfortunately, I think he just put too much into the novel and it lost credibility. He could have picked three, four, or five of the issues listed above and the story would have still been rich and meaningful. But when you put every human tragedy into one story, it becomes more exaggerated and far fetched than a Shakespearean play (and NO, I did not just compare Conroy to Shakespeare; just the content).
I probably would recommend this book, but with a cautionary flag. Read it only if you have the time and patience to wade through the heavy language and if your life is extremely dull and you need the drama of racism, homosexuality, vanity, deaths, suicides, psychopaths, rape, molestation, addiction, mental illness, crimes, nuns becoming wives, and extramarital affairs within 500 pages.
One good thing about all these issues being in one book is that Conroy did not leave one single issue open ended. We find out that the Charleston aristocrats eventually overcame their racism and we find out why Leo's brother Steven commits suicide. He also wraps up the story about Sheba and Trevor's psychotic father, the end of Leo's marriage, and although a few of the characters met tragic ends, most of them made it through this drama and emerged as stronger people.
KC Kelly
Guest Reviewer
Summary of South of Broad: A Novel
Leopold Bloom King has been raised in a family shattered?and shadowed?by tragedy. Lonely and adrift, he searches for something to sustain him and finds it among a tightly knit group of high school outsiders. Surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, as well as Charleston, South Carolina?s dark legacy of racism and class divisions, these friends will endure until a final test forces them to face something none of them are prepared for.Spanning two turbulent decades, South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest: a masterpiece from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.
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