South of Broad | 
| Author: Pat Conroy
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $8.63(as of 3/11/10 05:04 PST - Details)
You Save: $21.32 (71%)
New (71) Used (77) Collectible (19) from $8.63
Rating:  681 reviews
Sales Rank: 532
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First Edition
Pages: 528
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 038541305X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385413053
ASIN: 038541305X
Publication Date: August 11, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780385413053 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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Product Description
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; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.
The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for. South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 676 more reviews...
 overwrought March 10, 2010
L. Mc Kay (San Francisco)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'm still slugging my way through this book because there may be a good story underneath all the overly wrought descriptions and unbelievable dialogue. It really cries out for a better editor. I know Pat Conroy can write better; he's proved that with his previous books. I was thrilled to find a new Conroy book, and very disappointed that I'm not enjoying it more.
 I loved Leo March 10, 2010
C. Weigel
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having thoroughly enjoyed his "Prince of Tides" I relished the thought of another great character created by Pat Conroy.....In this I was NOT disappointed. I absolutely fell in love with Leo King and his wit and wisdom.....the first part of the book was, I felt, the best; when he meets the characters who will shape the rest of his (sad) life - His descriptions of his beloved Charleston made me want to take a trip there very soon...It is a tragic story of young people whose lives intertwine with Leo and he is the only one of the friends who does not end up with a lasting love and the children he would so love to have. There were a few parts I found unlikely - what man would actually STAY with a wife so completely wrecked as Starla - no matter HOW strict a Catholic he was? Also, I found it a bit difficult to believe some of the characters would become such close "friends" with the rest of them... (i.e., Wormy and Macklin Tijuana Jones!!)...I also felt some of the football stuff went on a bit too long. I loved Leo's description of his loving father and was moved to tears when his benefactor died and again when he found his father upon his death. All in all, I think Pat Conroy's a master of great dialogue, and a wonderful story teller.
 Pat Who? March 9, 2010
Debbie
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a big Pat Conroy fan but I finally had to put this book down without finishing it - it was beyond silly. I can hardly believe this is the same author who wrote The Prince of Tides and the Lords of Discipline. The dialogue (usually one of PC's strength's) was ridiculous and unbelievable, and the characters were complete cliche's. By the time I got to the part where Leo and his parents are throwing the big party to celebrate the end of his probation (cause what family wouldn't host a big shindig to celebrate that - Hallmark's losing money not making cards for that particular rite of passage) I was ready to throw the stupid book out the window. The dialogue (and everything else) was just that bad. I resisted the urge though, telling myself that it would get better once all those teenaged cliche's grew up. Didn't get any better though, and I finally gave up.
 Conroy Captures the South .... again March 8, 2010
Joyce G. Harold (Santa Cruz County, CA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read all of Conroy's works except his first novel & the "recipes" book that preceded this novel. Once again, this author has encapsulated the sense of the South in a wide-ranging story that will register with his generation. As in Beach Music, he takes real and imaginary events of those times and winds them into a tale of betrayal, loss, and introspection. By focusing on Charleston (so this novel is a boon to fans of that city), then San Francisco, Conroy successfully contrasts the two coasts of our country, mixes in the loneliness of childhood, and the special bonds we make in high school. Despite the narration of horrible loss throughout a 21-year span (1969 - 1990), I cannot think of a more selective personality study than he achieves with his descriptions of family, friends, and Southern society. With the curious exception of the Vietnam War (wouldn't some of these guys have been drafted?), no beat is missed here. And reflecting on almost every page is a thread to one of his other books (teaching, Citadel, insanity, tides).
At page 197, I'm done... March 8, 2010
Happy Reader (Baltimore)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If I could like even ONE character, I may go on. But I don't. Only best part is the first few pages where Leo delivers newpapers, it is all downhill from there. I very rarely quit in the middle of a book, even if I skim to the end to 'just see what happens.' But these characters are so impossible to like, I really don't care WHAT happens to them. If any of them have any redeeming qualities, they are overshadowed by the fact that they remain friends with the likes of Chad and Sheba, and tolerate Leo's mom at any function. THAT woman should be institutionalized ASAP, along with Sheba and Trevor's mom.
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