Synopsis
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;...
The Barnes & Noble Review
It's been 14 years between novels for Pat Conroy, a son of the South whose love of his native landscape is matched only by his obsession with the grim strength of family ties. Much of that darkness rises from experiences in his own life. He mined his explosive relationship with his father, a severe and controlling ex-Marine, for his debut novel, The Great Santini. He followed up with The Lords of Discipline, which scandalized his alma mater, The Citadel, with its unflattering portrayal. With The Prince of Tides, a bestselling novel turned A-list movie with Barbra Streisand, he cemented his spot in popular culture.
Conroy's back on familiar turf with South of Broad, which, depending on the eye of the beholder, is either a sprawling saga brimful of characters and emotion and sense of place, or a period melodrama with a pretty travelogue thrown in.