Mostly Pat Conroy's South of Broad bored me. A group of high school enemies-before-they-were-friends meet years later to bring home one of their own, a piano player who is dying of AIDS. Of course, they have all become successful or even mega-successful in their chosen fields. And, of course, while they pursue their goal, they reveal all the horrible things that happened in their youth and, in some cases, are still happening. Sadly never once in this melodramatic plot did these events ring true.
But there were spots—some good, some not—that did catch my attention. (But, as you can see, only two of them passed the do-I-really-want-to-talk-about-this test.)
1) The first thing that jumped out at me was—horror of horrors—a grammatical error. "At night, he would take my brother, Steve, and I out …" (page 3) Come on, Mr. Conroy. "Me" is not a dirty word. Regardless of the beating it has taken in the last decade, there are times when it is the proper pronoun to use. Like when it is an indirect object. Like in the sentence here discussed. I found it particularly unnerving to find "I" misused in Conroy's writing because one reason why he has stayed on my hardback-buy-immediately list of writers is his use of language. And, yes. Kathy, even at times in his description.
2) "I was the only kid in the American South whose mother had received a doctorate by writing a perfectly unreadable dissertation on the religious symbolism in James Joyce's equally unreadable Ulysses, which I considered the worse book ever written by anyone." (page 20) Amusing character, the mother. And an amusing characteristic. Conroy gets an "A" for her. But do the Ulysses references amuse and captivate me enough that'll I'll try to read it? Again? Quoth our own Pastor Ag, "I think not."
The book's conclusion was better than a lot of went before it. Mostly the good guys won, and one plot thread ended unexpectedly. Usually "surprise" in plotting is a good thing, but even though I enjoyed this one, I have doubts. It's the resolution of a plot line that's primary at the start of the book, then gets lost, IMHO, in the adventures of the group of high school friends. When the surprise conclusion happens, I first thought, "Cool." Then, "Shoot. I'd totally forgotten that plot thread." I'm not sure I can completely embrace a literary "surprise" whose major surprise involves, "Dang! I'd forgotten that was a plot line."
Anyway, I'll keep reading Conroy, hoping one of his books might again enthrall me as, say, The Great Santini did, but I can't help but wonder if he has told all the stories his life provided him. Or maybe it's time for him to leave his teenage years behind him and find stories in his life after those years.
