Book Beat: South of Broad

"Broad" is the word for Pat Conroy's latest novel.

There's something inherently likable about Leopold Bloom King, the 18-year-old hero of South of Broad by Pat Conroy (who also wrote Prince of Tides). He's a kind, well-meaning kid with a sarcastic sense of humor and a deep, dark past that includes juvenile probation for cocaine possession and stints in mental institutions after his older brother committed suicide at the young age of 10. The story begins just as Leo is finally turning his life around. He's got a paper route, his probation is almost over, he's starting his senior year, and for once, he's going to be a normal teenager. Or so he thinks.

His parents, anxious that Leo's days are busy and full, ask him to look after the new kids coming to school that year--and soon he has assembled a motley crew of friends who bond for life. Conroy makes it abundantly clear that this group of eight would have been almost impossible in 1969 in Charleston, South Carolina. Besides homely, middle-class Leo, there are two African Americans, two poor orphans from North Carolina, one openly gay kid and his vampy twin, one girl jock, and a couple of snooty rich kids thrown in for good measure. The drama, tensions, sexual relationships, etc., soon begin, with Leo's undying loyalty serving as the glue that holds the group all together. As a team, they tackle bigotry of all kinds, horrible pasts, psychotic relatives, and even disease--it gets pretty mawkish.

This was kind of a dirty trick. I was hoping for one kind of novel--a sort of Holden Caulfield adventure with Leo at center stage--and wound up reading a soap opera. I admit that I was reluctantly hooked for most of the book, even if I rolled my eyes a lot (especially when the plot leaps ahead 20 years and this unlikely eight-some is tackling the AIDS epidemic). Despite the abundance of plot and melodrama, Leo's uniqueness kept me turning pages. I wanted to know if he'd ever be able to heal--or at least accept--the gaping hole that his brother left in his life.

But, ultimately, there's just too much going on here. Too many characters. Too many issues. Too much melodrama. When I finally buckled under and finished the last 100 pages, I was not surprised to find that they were rife with rape, abortions, suicide, cold-blooded murder, and hurricanes. Too, too much.

Also disappointing: the dialogue. Everyone in the book has the same sarcastic one-liner approach to life that should have been Leo's alone. You can't tell who is talking without the attribution, and it's too bad.

Of course, while I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, it wasn't a complete waste of time for me. I enjoyed Leo's complex relationship with the Catholic church--how he was anchored to it, in love with its ritual and routine, and yet was not completely comfortable with it and even alienated sometimes. There's a funny moment when he says that his childhood finally made sense after he found out that his mother was a nun before she married his father. Catholic humor.

The Catholic references also double as references to James Joyce. Leo's mother is a Joycean scholar with a passion for Ulysses, and references to this staggering work abound--probably more than this amateur reader of Joyce's masterpiece could pick up on. Some are blatant, like the pivotal role of Bloomsday (June 16, which is the date that the events of Ulysses take place) or the names of Leopold Bloom King and his brother Stephen Dedalus King, which are the names of Joyce's two heroes. Others are a little less so--for example, the last sentence of the book is very similar to the last sentence of Ulysses.

In keeping with the Joycean influence, the city of Charleston itself serves as a central character, and probably some of the best stuff in the novel is the portrait of the complexities of this Southern city. But the novel just doesn't hold together with its overcrowded plot and burgeoning cast of characters with nearly identical personalities. Do yourself a favor, and skip it!


South of Broad: **