Author: Pat Conroy

Book Review by Cos Barnes

I have been a fan of Pat Conroy’s from the start. I sympathized with his teaching plight in THE WATER IS WIDE; I grieved for his father’s treatment of him in THE GREAT SANTINI; I struggled through his college years at the Citadel in THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE. I wept over my favorite, THE PRINCE OF TIDES; I even cheered for his team through every page of MY LOSING SEASON. Through it all I wondered what kind of a family had produced this master wordsmith. He made no secret of the peculiarities of his parents.

His style is seductive, his prose fluid, his descriptions incredible. He is honest in his retelling of life as he knew it. Yet I was disappointed in the eagerly-awaited SOUTH OF BROAD.

At first, I was entranced with the young hero, Leo Bloom King who is dominated by his mother and soothed by his wonderful father who strives to do all the things fathers do for their sons, particularly in light of the fact that Leo’s older brother committed suicide when Leo was only eight. He spends much of his young life in mental institutions, and yet, he has a personality that triumphs. He has a wonderful rapport with his neighbors as their newspaper boy, he enjoys a special friendship with the tailor of a local men’s clothing store. The community service he does for an ailing antiques dealer, adding his own brand of humor and medicinal help, endears him to the man, if somewhat begrudgingly.

Then there are Leo’s friends. It is almost impossible to believe that the connection his high school friends build while playing high school football stays intact for life – and they get each other in and out of trouble. There are Starla and Niles Whitehead, dirt poor brother and sister orphans; Sheba and Trevor Poe, twins who move into his neighborhood with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father and are responsible for much of his education; Chad and Fraser Rutledge, a social couple who have never wanted for anything; Molly Huger, Chad’s girlfriend; and Ike Jefferson, one of the first African-Americans to be integrated into the public schools of Charleston.

And the dramatic character in the book is Charleston, the intoxicating city of gardens, flowers and culture.

The friends experience many heartbreaks, particularly during Hugo, the hurricane of 1989, yet they stay locked in a friendship that is unbreakable. Maybe I find this friendship too artificial, or maybe, too good to be true.

The end brings many surprises as these characters’ lives interlock. As with any Pat Conroy book, it deserves a read.