South of Broad
A Novel
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4.3 • 430 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage” (The Washington Post) by the celebrated author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini
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 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.
Praise for South of Broad
“Vintage Pat Conroy . . . a big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage.”—The Washington Post
“Conroy remains a magician of the page.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Richly imagined . . . These characters are gallant in the grand old-fashioned sense, devoted to one another and to home. That siren song of place has never sounded so sweet.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune
“A lavish, no-holds-barred performance.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“A lovely, often thrilling story.”—The Dallas Morning News
“A pleasure to read . . . a must for Conroy’s fans.”—Associated Press
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
Conroy was a gifted writer
Conroy delivers a great novel again. I read 2-4 books weekly. Many unexpected turn of events.
This is the first book in 10 years I've read with no errors! The last award winning author & publisher of multiple authors had 60+ errors.
Authors, insist that your final proofreaders do their jobs. Plus, delete the spell/grammar software. Realize that books help with spelling, vocabulary, and grammar, but not when they contain errors.
Conroy's best
This is one of my favorite Conroy works. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, this and Beach Music stand out as two of my favorites.
South
Such a magnificent book which appeals to my South Carolina heritage. Pat Conroe is my all time favorite author and the world is the poorer for his passing.