Review
The first novel in fourteen years from beloved writer Pat Conroy (Beach Music, Prince of Tides) evoked passionate responses from our members. With 20 out of 23 rating it 4 or 5 stars, nearly all of them found the book well worth the wait, but even the fans had some criticisms.
Some of our readers loved it without reservation:
With
South of Broad, an ode to the beauty of Charleston and the joys and sorrows of friendship, Pat Conroy pulled me into his imagined world from page one. It's not the first time this has happened and I hope it won't be the last (Mary Lee P). Being a southerner myself and very familiar with Charleston, I could see each street and house and walled garden as it was being described. I have also spent many days in San Francisco so I could picture the rundown neighborhoods and the mansion on the coast. For those of you not...
Beyond the Book
Pat Conroy was born on October 26, 1945, in Atlanta, Georgia, to a young career military officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, whom Pat often credits for his love of language. He was the first of seven children.
His father was a violent and abusive man, a man whose biggest mistake, Conroy once said, was allowing a novelist to grow up in his home. Since his family had to move many times to different military bases around the South, Conroy changed schools frequently, finally attending the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina, upon his father's insistence. While still a student, he wrote and then published his first book,
The...
