South of Broad

Overview

The publishing event of the season: The one and only Pat Conroy returns, with a big, sprawling novel that is at once a love letter to Charleston and to lifelong friendship.

Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.

Editorial Reviews

Charleston, S.C., gossip columnist Leopold Bloom King narrates a paean to his hometown and friends in Conroy's first novel in 14 years. In the late '60s and after his brother commits suicide, then 18-year-old Leo befriends a cross-section of the city's inhabitants: scions of Charleston aristocracy; Appalachian orphans; a black football coach's son; and an astonishingly beautiful pair of twins, Sheba and Trevor Poe, who are evading their psychotic father. The story alternates between 1969, the glorious year Leo's coterie stormed Charleston's social, sexual and racial barricades, and 1989, when Sheba, now a movie star, enlists them to find her missing gay brother in AIDS-ravaged San Francisco. Too often the not-so-witty repartee and the narrator's awed voice (he is very fond of superlatives) overwhelm the stories surrounding the group's love affairs and their struggles to protect one another from dangerous pasts. Some characters are tragically lost to the riptides of love and obsession, while others emerge from the frothy waters of sentimentality and nostalgia as exhausted as most readers are likely to be. Fans of Conroy's florid prose and earnest melodramas are in for a treat. (Aug.)
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Author Information

Bio of Pat Conroy

The novelist Pat Conroy's life and personal experience are so inextricably bound up with his writing that, at first glance, it might seem that he is merely retelling the story of his life, again and again. The truth is, as usual, far more complicated and interesting. Significant elements and characters in his novels are obviously drawn from his life, a choice that apparently has created tremendous tension in his family. But these facts are merely points of departure for the author, who has a gift that is perhaps the most desirable and elusive of all for any novelist -- the ability to spin an unforgettable story. Conroy was born in 1945 in Atlanta, the eldest of seven children and the son of Col. Donald Conroy, a man not unlike the hero of "The Great Santini." He attended The Citadel, the South Carolina military academy that inspired the setting for The Lords of Discipline, and briefly taught school on an island off the South Carolina coast, an experience recounted in The Water Is Wide. The fallout from his life with his family seems to have inspired Conroy to create deeply compelling stories of vivid characters searching for love and fulfillment. These tales are invariably rooted in the infernal complexities and often dark realities of Southern tradition, notably in The Lords of Discipline and The Prince of Tides. The death of his mother -- a crafty Southern woman who chose to be called Peggy, after the author of "Gone With the Wind" -- led him to write his most recent novel "Beach Music." Though Conroy's books have created publicized rifts within his own family, they stand on their own with the public and most critics, having been embraced by a faithful and ever-growing readership and inspiring popular film adaptations. "Misfortune," Garry Abrams wrote in the Los Angeles Times, "has been good to novelist Pat Conroy."

Customer Reviews

• A classic

  Posted August 31, 2009 by Terry, Centreville, VA

  I spent the first 40 years of my life near the City of Charleston, but for us it was where the guys south of Broad came to get ice. Today it's North Charleston, but it made it into the book that is classic Conroy. I found myself several times in the book, or at least experiecing the same things as Leo King did. Charlestonians will be proud to read this novel that will hopefully become a classic for my children. A must read for anyone who knows anything about the Charleston area. A book like this makes me hope to spend my last years in this Holy City.

• The best of Literature

  Posted September 06, 2009 by Nicole, Charleston

  Of course I am partial to the backdrop of this story but even from an objective point of view the writing in the this book rivals the best in all of literature. My greatest wish is that there is more to come from this marvelous writer; Truly one of the best of our time, An pure example of perfect writing.

• amazing

  Posted September 07, 2009 by robin, newton

  Pat Conroy grabbed me from the very first page. I read this book during my trip to Italy and practically couldn't put it down. I loved the characters and the story development. And it made me want to go to Charleston. This is a must read.

• A Wonder

  Posted September 08, 2009 by Julie, Thibodaux

  Pat Conroy has been a favorite author of mine for two decades.For fourteen years, I missed having a new Conroy novel. However, if he was using this time to craft what is in my opinio, the most beautifuly written book ever, he is forgiven. The way Conroy uses the English language is a wonder.
  Reading this book was a delight.

• Laughter, tears - I didn't want this book to end!

  Posted September 14, 2009 by V. Menzie, Winnipeg

  Witty dialogue that made me laugh out loud and characters that were so real I shed a tear when they felt pain. With masterful use of language, Pat Conroy weaves a tale in which intensely real characters live in a magical place - Charleston. It starts out sad but becomes joyous. I honestly didn't want this book to end.

• It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This!

  Posted October 24, 2009 by Stephen, Sunny Isles Beach, FL

  South Of Broad is one of the best books I have ever read! Amazing Story, incredible characters, and Conroy's prose are like poetry. Wow!!!!

• Just Spent An Amazing Week in Charleston

  Posted November 15, 2009 by Janet, New York City

  I had never been to Charleston, but I feel as though I have just returned. Great novel! Loved the characters, themes, and storyline. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like Leo King.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Nan A. Talese

Filesize

2.40 MB

Number of Pages

528

eBook ISBN

9780385532143