Reading Agony: The Book List
I am beginning this book list entry with less than 100 pages to go in Pat Conroy’s latest—and first in 14 years—South of Broad. And let me just say this before I continue: agony! Agony! AGONY!!!111elevnty!!!11
Sorry, Mr. Conroy. I will return to this after I finish the book. Hold on one second . . .
Okay, done. Let me gather my thoughts and my copy of Beach Music. Herein lie spoilers for both books. Be warned.
The first thought that springs to mind is this: why is high school the most important and defining period of time in the lives of the characters of both of these books? Why is it that no one—not even those who move there—can escape South Carolina? Why is it that the friendships these characters establish in their limited youth echo through the decades and affect them so deeply? I have never understood the concept of high school being the glory years. They are four terrible, awkward years, years in which your knowledge and exploration of knowledge is limited by school testing guidelines, hometown bullies and the dismissal of adults who can’t fathom that you might want to be taken seriously on some occasion. Why they seem to be such important years in both the worlds of Beach Music and South of Broadbaffles me. And infuriates me because . . . drum roll . . .
They are essentially the same book. A little bit of deviation with the main plot, but let me do a quick diagram for you:
Leopold Bloom King = Jack McCall, cooking skills and self-righteousness intact, minus one precocious child. Stalwart husband to a troubled wife.
Starla Whitehead King = Shyla McCall, craziness intact, minus the focus on Shyla’s experiences in concentration camps during World War II. Throw in a bit of Lucy McCall with the North Carolina mountains background. Lacks Shyla’s ability to actually love her husband.
Molly Rutledge = Ledare Ansley, beauty and sassiness intact, minus the courage to do something for herself.
Chadworth Rutledge = Capers Middleton, all asshole nature intact. Except that Rutledge never divorces Molly like Capers did Ledare.
Lindsay King = Lucy McCall, all criticism and snarky attitude intact, minus the leukemia and poor background. Big time James Joyce scholar, hence the kids’ names.
Sheba Poe = Mike Hess, all Hollywood idiocy intact, minus the whole male thing. Spoiler: murdered, too, which Mike should’ve been countless times over (by his friends, no less).
Trevor Poe = Jordan Elliott, needing to be saved by his friends. Talented, sensitive, but Trevor’s gay. Jordan becomes a monk.
I could go on, but what Pat Conroy seems to have done is take all the personalities of his last novel’s characters, shuffle them a bit, reassign some character traits, and dump the resulting stew into a 512-page book that overwhelms the reader with descriptions of South Carolina’s beauty (if only I could describe the Huron River like Conroy does the Ashley!), repetitive stories (I read the porpoise story once, Conroy, I don’t need to see it again mere pages after it happens) and reused plot twists. I knew as soon as Leo King’s therapist mentions King’s anger at his father for his older brother’s death that the priest in the story had molested the late Steve King (middle name is Dedalus, by the way, so there’s no horror author tribute there); I rolled my eyes when the above-mentioned porpoise appeared because it had made a miraculous appearance in Beach Music, too; I wanted to throw my book out the window when Hurricane Hugo made an appearance toward the end and provides a convenient means by which to dispose of the book’s one antagonist (a poor way to do it, but I was dreading a stupid confrontation in which Leo’s storytelling ability makes the madman crumble to his knees in humiliation and tears). The comeuppance of the priest who causes Steve’s suicide is half-hearted and almost cowardly; is it too much to expose him while he’s alive? The introduction of a love interest for Leo who is actually outside of the core high school group is done weakly and is a throwaway scene in the book—it’s merely there to provide a hint of happiness for King after his mental breakdown (another trait he shares with Jack).
Again, I could go on, but my ultimate advice to anyone who has even picked up Beach Music is this: do not waste your time with South of Broad. Can Pat Conroy still write? Yes, but the humid and verdant beauty of South Carolina is getting old. So are the characters that are always described as the gods and goddesses of their high school. As are the tragedies that befall them; I know you need something to drive your plot, but is everyone in South Carolina living lives of quiet desperation beneath their genteel facades? Must every mother hide something of her past that will irrevocably change her child? Must everyone in the core group be super-talented at something? Must they all be misfits until they find one another? Must they all make South Carolina history? Must high school be the force that sets them in motion? Must at least one character attend The Citadel?
I really loved Beach Music when I first read it, but as I flip through for comparisons, I see the weaknesses cropping up here and there. Conroy is a witty writer and can make his reader laugh; his characters are sharp, but not well-developed. His descriptions can be beautiful, but can also reach the “overdone” setting quickly. There needs to be some restraint and re-examination of the characters which he chooses to populate his novels; over the top is okay in one character. But in all of them? No. Beach Music was entertaining to the girl who wanted to know everything there was to know about the characters; South of Broad was painful to the woman who just wanted everyone to get to the damn point already.
Because ultimately, what is South of Broad about? There seem to be several unsatisfying climaxes and South of Broad goes out with a whimper. A group of high school friends, yes, and what happens to them 20 years later, but I’m not sure who or what I’m supposed to be rooting for, nor do I understand why I should care about these people. Beach Music at least has the finality of Jordan’s punishment and Lucy’s death as the climaxes; what we see afterward is Jack coming to peace with his losses. I don’t see Leo King at peace. I don’t understand Starla or Sheba’s deaths. Why does Lindsay go back into the convent? Why is the priest dealt with kid gloves? Why does the only antagonist disappear so silently (I have a feeling that Conroy had no idea what to do with him, so he drowned the guy with Hugo)? In the end, it feels like Pat Conroy simply wanted to play a bit more with the characters from Beach Music.
A strong do not recommend from your faithful WordNerd. Onto the book list:
Finished:
1) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
2) Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
3) The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
4) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
5) Fool by Christopher Moore
6) People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
7) The World of Normal Boys by K.M. Soehnlein
8) Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
9) The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
10) Little Man, What Now? by Hans Fallada
11) The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Translated by Lucia Graves)
12) South of Broad by Pat Conroy
Re-read:
1) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Currently Reading:
1) The Aeneid by Virgil (Translation by Robert Fagles)
2) The Implacable Order of Things by Jose Luis Peixoto
Waiting To Be Read (Already Purchased, Got as Gifts, Borrowed from My Husband or Otherwise Accessible without the Use of Funds, But Not an Assurance That I Will Read These Before I Buy More Books):
1) Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn by William J. Mann
2) The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
3) Dancing to “Almendra” by Mayra Montero
4) The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears” by Dinaw Mengestu
Nice review! (Aren’t the bad reviews more fun to write than the good ones?)
From even my 50-page reading of Beach Music (before I put it aside as too over-the-top for me) I can tell you’ve captured a lot of truth about the flaws in Conroy’s plotting and characterization. It’s neat when novels have a sense of place, but I could already tell Conroy lacked subtlety (I mean, to take another very popular writer, most of Stephen King’s books focus very strongly on Maine, but he never has to beat you over the head with it). I could also tell that Jack McCall was definitely one of the high school kool kidz. And, as I complained to you, seemed utterly driven by whim. Though it was the dialogue with the kid who sealed the deal with me: not only don’t kids talk like that, but that sort of flagrant using-dialogue-to-fill-in-backstory is just plain amateurish.
Yes, the bad ones are fun to write. :D
You should’ve seen the dialogue that Conroy used for King and Co. in high school. If I had talked like that in high school I probably would’ve been skipped to college immediately. WordNerd Howser, M.D.
I looked him up and it looks like he had an interesting, but very tough, personal history. I’m glad he’s managed to parlay that into success. But his range seems pretty limited and his writing leaves a lot to be desired.
Yeah, I know it hasn’t been peaches and cream for him. But I guess I expected more and something a little bit different when the new novel came out.
Funny note: when I did a search for “The Drinker”, Hans Fallada’s book came up first, but the second result was “The Sun Also Rises” by Hemingway. Sad, but I couldn’t help laughing out loud.
You are obviously not from South Carolina. He attended the Citadel. While at the Citadel, he fell absolutely in love with the Lowcountry of South Carolina. If you haven’t been, you might not understand. So, those things are characters in all his books. They are always there. We would miss them if they weren’t.
If you’ve ever heard him speak, he talks about how hard it is for him to write. He envies his wife when she writes. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he commented: “I’ll hear her cackle with laughter at some funny line she’s written. I’ve never cackled with laughter at a single line I’ve ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. She writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness.” Writing for him is his therapy, which I think is why some of his books can be so depressing and sometimes get repetitive.
And, yes, in SC, high school is considered the defining experience of life. I agree with you – I thought it was the worst 4 years of my life. College was far better! But, considering most of the people I went to high school with got married as soon as we graduated – well, high school becomes the highlight of your life and what you did when you were 16 is your favorite memory (cheerleader, football star, whatever).
And, no, there is no getting away from SC. I grew up in the Upstate which I would not recommend. But, I am right there with Conroy in falling in love with the Lowcountry. He’s lucky enough to live on one of the barrier islands. I’m dreaming of being his neighbor one day. We move away, but we know we’re just visiting those other places until we can go back.
None of this excuses a poorly written book. But I love him enough to give him a pass as well as understand that he’s been in poor health the last few years – probably shouldn’t have been writing a book at all. I wonder how much of this was pushed by his publisher and/or by himself. I have a feeling this may be his last book which makes me incredibly sad.
Didi: Thanks, but I know all of the above about Conroy. As you said, though, this doesn’t excuse a poorly written book. Or an overused theme. As a reader, I was hugely disappointed and will express my opinion freely. To take into account the author’s biography and base my criticism on that instead of the words, themes, and ideas within the text is poor analysis.