The novel's midsection resembles the seminal 1983 baby boomer film, "The Big Chill": a festive but painful reunion of 30-something childhood friends, complete with infidelity and movie stars. To see them all mashed together feels a bit gratuitous.įurthermore, "South of Broad" has a way of rapidly shifting gears that will disorient some readers. There are many tragedies in "South of Broad," any one of which could have sprouted its own novel. The same could be said of the woe that he seeds so liberally throughout the book. The high tides of the city flood my consciousness each day, subject to the whims and harmonies of full moons rising out of the Atlantic."Ĭonroy's poetic flair has always been one of his strengths, but there are moments when he lays it on a little thick. My soul is peninsula-shaped and sun-hardened and river-swollen. "I carry the delicate porcelain beauty of Charleston like the hinged shell of some soft-tissued mollusk.
It's when he pays tribute to the so-named "Holy City" that Conroy's prose is at its most lyrically authentic:
Also like Conroy's past novels, "South of Broad" is part love letter to the author's hometown of Charleston, S.C.
Conroy's latest novel revisits prominent themes from his previous books, namely suicide, sexual abuse, and race relations and class struggles in the Deep South.
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