August 16, 2009

South of Broad by Pat Conroy


Left of handsome Leopold, “Leo” is the sweetest South Carolina boy that you ever could meet, and he narrates Pat Conroy’s South of Broad. Broad is set in South Carolina and tells the story of his lifelong friendships forged during a fateful summer before his senior year of high school. Raised by a former nun and an all around great guy, Leo and his family is left reeling by the surprise suicide of his older golden brother Stephen. Coming out of his tailspin, shy but clever Leo endears glamorous twins, high society brats, down and out orphans, and newly integrated blacks. These friendships span the course of his life and test everything he knows.

Conroy uses the group to explore almost every possible theme: discrimination, abuse, religion, family, home, love, sex, drugs, fame, disease and commitment. At times it is beautifully worded depiction of how compelling the bonds of friendship can be. Other times it is an ugly and edgy look at growing up during the latter half of the twentieth century. This is the first novel I’ve ever read by Conroy. So for me personally, it was an eye opening introduction to Conroy’s startling and graceful use of language. Its 500+ pages aren’t daunting or laborious in Conroy’s deft hands; instead they are simply a pleasure to read. Conroy delivers a hugely ambitious book with hundreds of little plot nuances and dozens of characters that Conroy manages to tie up.

That said, of course some of the characters are underdeveloped. Conroy attempts seven characters with huge and distinct personalities. He’d need thousands of pages to solidify motivations and layered complex characterization for these characters and his storyline. If you approach it clearly from the perspective of Leo some of his actions are still not thoroughly explained or justified. Not helping matters is that fact that Conroy inexplicably structures his story to begin in the sixties, jumps to the eighties, then back to the sixties, and finishes in the early nineties. The story gains nothing by this organization, so instead it just sort of complicates the plot’s arc. The second return the sixties is almost entirely unnecessary except to add a hundred or so extra pages to the books heft.

These complaints don’t detract much from the story. If you are a Conroy fan, or have an itch that only a thick, well-written, near-epic novel can satisfy, I highly recommend South of Broad.

3 comments:

  1. Great review. I have this one, but have not been in the mood yet. It will be read soon though I am sure.

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  2. I really enjoy Conroy and am looking forward to this one. I recently featured his "The Prince of Tides" as one of my favorite reads. Conroy always has a lot of characters and sometimes you just have to accept that there are motivations you don't necessarily know about and that's okay because the writing is so marvelous.

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  3. I have read all of Conroy's books except My Losing Season which I have just recently started. I enjoyed South of Broad, I guess, but after having completed it, I felt it pales somewhat against the back drop of his earlier works. If you really want a glimpse of Conroy the man read his first work, The Boo. Particularly enjoyable was the intro he wrote for the book many years after it was first published and after he had become a successful writer.

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