South of Broad, book review

The last time I read a Pat Conroy novel was probably fifteen years ago. I’m not a particular fan, though I can see why he remains a perennial bestseller. To quote his flyleaf, Conroy possesses “a passion for life and language that knows no bounds.” To that, I’ll add that I like the way he makes setting a character all to itself, and as well as the way his characters surprise me with what they say and do. With that in mind, when South of Broad, one of his more recent tomes came to my attention, I decided to give it a try.


When Charleston born-and-bred Leo King’s older brother commits suicide at age ten, it plunges Leo into a pit of darkness that he begins to emerge from ten years later, at the start of his high school senior year. Not coincidentally, that’s also the year he becomes a part of a tightly knit group of friends ranging from a debutante, a black teenager with a chip on his shoulder the size of Fort Sumter, a brother-and-sister pair of orphans, and glamorous twins – one destined for the cinema, the other to die of AIDS. Over the next twenty years, their friendship is tested as they set out together on the quest of a lifetime, along the way unearthing secrets they never imagined existed.

This luscious novel begins well, introducing a plethora of intriguing characters, engrossing plot questions, and of course, the kind of compelling Southern setting Conroy’s famous for. But then – perhaps a third of the way through – flashback. A big one. This, I resisted because by then, I’d gotten to know the characters as grown-ups. I really wasn’t interested in devolving into their teenage angst, even if it did help to explain the adults they would become. It felt too much like telling, and I’d have preferred it shown.

By then, too, I was able to figure out the novel’s big secret, and it was too soon. I didn’t like knowing it so quickly or easily (really, I was hardly even trying). I wanted the suspense to sustain so that I might enjoy the surprise closer to the climax.

Which is all to say that I was disappointed in South of Broad, and suspect it may be another fifteen years before I try another of Pat Conroy’s books.