Reading a Pat Conroy novel is a bit like settling into your favorite adirondack chair and knowing an emotional hurricane is due to roll in any moment. South of Broad, like all his other novels (and the non-fiction "My Losing Season"), is a story of friendship and loss, of the search for humanity, and dealing with the inevitable dissappointments of life. The story jumps from Charleston in the late 60s and early 70s to the same city, as well as San Francisco, in the late 80s and early 90s. There is tension throughout: sexual, racial, familial. Pat Conroy is among my favorite writers, living or dead, and this novel only supports why I like him so much. Its protagonist, Leo King (a.k.a. Toad) is about to begin his senior year of high school when several things happen to change his life. Leo is finishing probation for a crime he didn't commit, but refused to tattle on the person who did.
His high school (at which his James Joyce -loving mother is principal) has just hired a black football coach, and the coach's son Ike is set to be co-captain with Toad. Half the white football players have quit because they don't want to play with blacks or for a black coach. A new family has moved in across the street, including twins that are the same age as Toad. Sheba will become one of the biggest movie stars on the planet one day, and Trevor is a highly skilled piano player who is also openly homosexual. Chad and Fraser Rutledge are among the Charleston elite, but are forced to attend the public high school their senior year. Fraser is perhaps the best female basketball player the state has ever seen, and Chad, in Leo's opinion, is the biggest jerk the state has ever seen. Finally, two orphans, Starla and Niles, are enrolled in the school and Leo's mother gives him the duty of making sure their transition goes smoothly. Nothing, of course, goes smoothly-- whether it's the integration of the football team or the forging of this new group of friends. We see the group throughout the senior year of high school, as well as twenty years later when they come together to save one of their group. Lesser writers would take pieces of the novel and make them into entire novels; Conroy is able to merge all the stories and characters into a breath-taking tale that seems to be all of us. I've never been to the south, but I so often feel like a native son because I've lived there through Conroy's many novels. I recommend it for upper level high school juniors and seniors or beyond. A little less than half the total book deals with the senior year of high school, which is enough to hook mature high school readers. ( )

I love Leo King. He is witty and kind and honorable. The story was captivating. The only part that didn't settle well with me was the story of Sheba and Trevor's father. ( )

Pat Conroy is the famous author of Prince of Tides, and he is heavily influenced by his Southern roots. Critics of his latest novel, South of Broad, have argued that it is repetitive but as a first-time Conroy reader, I was enchanted by his use of the English language.

There is no doubting that Conroy is a superb craftsman, whose tools are words. He paints beautiful pictures of Charleston and its inhabitants, endowing the images with luminous light through the use of mere words. The dialogue between the characters is witty and very contemporary - more than once was I reminded of the snappy dialogue found in modern dramas such as Dawson's Creek, The OC and others.

South of Broad centres on Leo King (or more accurately Leopold Bloom King, named after the hero of Joyce's Ulysses), a southern gentleman and journalist. Leo has a close group of disparate friends who came together in the late 1960s in high school. The book skips back and forth between the 1960s, where Leo is beginning to resume a normal life following the suicide of his elder brother, and the late 1980s where their group is under threat and one of its members faces death from the AIDs epidemic of that era.

The story may be somewhat obvious and even laboured, but it was a book I found hard to put down. The music and harmony present in Conroy's wordcraft puts him head and shoulders above many competing authors. ( )

Was disappointed. Though Conroy continues to be a wonderful writer, and one of the best writers of dialogue ever, I had a hard time liking any of the female characters in this one. Some parts of the stories didn't seem to add up or have closure. I found it unbelievable that this group of friends would stay so close over a period of 20 years, intermarry, and later forsake parents and children for each other. I have good friends, but not that good. I might have ONE that would do that. Not six or eight. That an 18 year old boy with a record could get a doctor to do an operation for free or that his court-appointed community service boss would leave him a mansion and tons of money. It required a lot of suspension of disbelief. Almost too much.

The conversations between the characters is the reason this gets three stars. If only we could all talk so smartly and wittily.

Writing--good. Story--bad. ( )

This man's language is pure music. Pat Conroy writes so mellifluously and smoothly that it's a physical pleasure to read his books especially when they are in the form of an audio book.

South of Broad is a good book, not a great one. Not as good as Prince of Tides but very, very enjoyable. I gave it 5 stars on the strength of the language alone. Pure heaven. ( )