South of Broad, Pat Conroy
South of Broad, Pat Conroy
16 Rating(s)
List: $22.50 | Sale: $15.75
Club: $11.25

South of Broad

Author: Pat Conroy

Narrator: Mark Deakins

Unabridged: 20 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/11/2009


Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage” (The Washington Post) by the celebrated author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini
 
Leopold Bloom King has been raised in a family shattered—and shadowed—by tragedy. Lonely and adrift, he searches for something to sustain him and finds it among a tightly knit group of outsiders. Surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, as well as Charleston, South Carolina’s dark legacy of racism and class divisions, these friends will endure until a final test forces them to face something none of them are prepared for.
 
Spanning two turbulent decades, South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest: a masterpiece from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.
 
Praise for South of Broad
 
“Vintage Pat Conroy . . . a big sweeping novel of friendship and marriage.”—The Washington Post
 
“Conroy remains a magician of the page.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“Richly imagined . . . These characters are gallant in the grand old-fashioned sense, devoted to one another and to home. That siren song of place has never sounded so sweet.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune
 
“A lavish, no-holds-barred performance.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
“A lovely, often thrilling story.”—The Dallas Morning News
 
“A pleasure to read . . . a must for Conroy’s fans.”—Associated Press

About The Author

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) was the author of The Boo, The Water Is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life, My Losing Season, South of Broad, My Reading Life, and The Death of Santini.


Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Lorraine on 2010-06-08 08:53:44

The beginning of this book is great then it gets a little over the top with the main character, and the dialogue becomes stilted and unbelievable, It continues to get worse as the book goes on. I was really disappointed in this book. I was so looking forward to another conroy too. The characters were unbelieveable, and well almost cartoonish. The main character might as well have had angel wings everything was just too much. I wish the editor had done a better job.

AudiobooksNow review by Joanne on 2010-11-17 20:18:14

i very much enjoyed this book.i love the way pat conroy writes his characters.you likely have never met anyone like them but he makes you believe they really do exist.it's a story about survival and also about those who can't overcome their past even with love.

Goodreads review by Will on November 10, 2021

In Pat Conroy’s first novel in 14 years a group of friends comes together as high-schoolers in the late 1960s and they change each others’ lives. Our guide through this ode to friendship is Leopold Bloom King, second son in every sense to a mother who is not only the principal at his high school, bu......more

Goodreads review by Eloise on November 27, 2011

This is a difficult book to review. I loved Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides, and I think he is an immensely talented writer and storyteller. South of Broad, however, is not one of his best works. There were far too many jarring grammatical errors (which occurred as early as page three), the dialogu......more

Goodreads review by Joanie on September 03, 2012

This book has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. I was about to give birth when I tried last time and the stuff about his 10 year old brother committing suicide was too much to take at the time. Going to make it through this time! Okay-I finished. Once I started I wondered why I ever waited.......more

Goodreads review by Malcolm on May 12, 2011

Pat Conroy’s “South of Broad” is a love song to Charleston with blood on the sheet music. As he walks toward the Cooper River in 1990, six months after Hurricane Hugo tore into his beloved city, narrator Leo King ponders the city’s rebuilding and healing, and the coming spring: “Since the day I was......more


Quotes

Praise for South of Broad

"Conroy is an immensely gifted stylist…. No one can describe a tide or a sunset with his lyricism and exactitude."—Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post

"Conroy writes with a momentum that's impossible to resist."—People, 3 of 4 stars."Beautifully written throughout…. Conroy is a natural at weaving great skeins of narrative, and this one will prove a great pleasure to his many fans."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Conroy is a master of American fiction and he has proved it once again in this magnificent love letter to his beloved Charleston, and to friendships that will stand the test of time."—BookpagePraise for Beach Music

"Astonishing . . . stunning . . . the range of passions and subjects that brings life to every page is almost endless." —Washington Post Book World

"Blockbuster writing at its best." —Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Pat Conroy's writing contains a virtue now rare in most contemporary fiction: passion." —Denver Post

"Reading Pat Conroy is like watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel." —Houston Chronicle

"Incandescent." —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Grand." —Boston Globe

"Lyrical . . . evocative . . . Beach Music is one from the heart, and it beats with a vibrancy that cannot be denied." —Hartford Courant

"Breathtaking . . . perhaps the most eagerly awaited book of the year . . . a knockout." —Charlotte Observer

"Beach Music attains an almost ethereal beauty." —Miami Herald

"Few novelists write as well, and none as beautifully . . . Conroy's narrative is so fluid and poetic that it's apt to seduce you into reading just one more page, just one more chapter." —Lexington Herald-Leader

"Compelling storytelling . . . a page-turner . . . Conroy takes aim at our darkest emotions, lets the arrow fly, and hits a bull's-eye almost every time." —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel