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South of Broad

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 19,905 ratings · 3,927 reviews

The publishing event of the season: The one and only Pat Conroy returns, with a big, sprawling novel that is at once a love letter to Charleston and to lifelong friendship.

Against the sumptuous backdrop of Charleston, South Carolina, South of Broad gathers a unique cast of sinners and saints. Leopold Bloom King, our narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who tea...more

Hardcover, 460 pages

Published August 11th 2009 by Nan A. Talese (first published 2009)

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Nov 27, 2011 Eloise Meachum rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 dialogue was awful and the storyline over-the-top dramatic. That said, though, I still found it a compelling read, and Conroy at his worst is still better than 99% of the writers out there. Parts of the book...more

34 likes · like · see review

Sep 03, 2012 Joanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, 2012, audio-book

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. First off I want to say that I feel like in some ways the description did this book an injustice. Yes, it starts in Charleston and they travel to San Francisco but the desription makes it sound like t...more

16 likes · like · see review

Jan 26, 2010 Mary rated it 1 of 5 stars

Greatly anticipated and greatly loathed. I love the other Conroy novels. The Great Santini and the Prince of Tides are modern classics. But now Conroy has taken the "dysfunctional South Carolina family" formula and beaten it into the ground.

Where to start? Implausible plot elements. I mean PUH-leeze. I can't even cover all the gimmicks Conroy throws into this plot. Give your readers some credit, you don't have to hit them over the head with every imaginable twist on family dysfunction all in one...more

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May 12, 2011 Malcolm rated it 4 of 5 stars

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 born, I have been worried that heaven would never be half as beautiful as Charleston.”

Like his counterpart Tom Wingo in “The Prince of Tides” (1986), Leopold Bloom King is a psychologically wounded ma...more 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 born, I have been worried that heaven would never be half as beautiful as Charleston.”

Like his counterpart Tom Wingo in “The Prince of Tides” (1986), Leopold Bloom King is a psychologically wounded man. While Wingo’s issues focus on a brutal family secret, the death of an older brother, and a suicidal sister, King is haunted by the suicide of his older brother Steve. King worshipped that brother, the golden boy and their mother’s overt favorite. “Looking back,” King tells us, “I think the family suffered a collective nervous breakdown after we buried Steve.”

King drifted between that collective breakdown and 1969 when he found himself fulfilling the role of anchorman in a diverse group of high school seniors: Ike Jefferson, one of the first black students to play on the high school football team; Sheba and Trevor Poe, the dramatic and talented twins who live across the street with an alcoholic mother; the mountain-born orphans Starla and Niles Whitehead, who hope one day to be re-united with their mother; and from the aristocratic world South of Broad Street, Molly Huger and brother and sister Chad and Fraser Rutledge.

That these students appeared in King’s life on June 16—Bloomsday, for those who revere James Joyce—was to some extent orchestrated by his mother with the helping hand of fate. After all, his mother who was both the high school principal and a Joycean scholar named him after Leopold Bloom, Joyce’s protagonist in “Ulysses.” And after all, as King saw it, there are no coincidences; “fate comes at you cat-footed, unavoidable, and bloodthirsty.”

Conroy portrays the meeting and evolving relationships between King and this disparate collection of variously angry, snobbish, haunted and broken souls with humor and realism. Some commentators have panned Conroy’s dialogue as unnatural. Yet, one might ask what “normal” could possibly sound like for people weaned on tragedy and/or destined for it.

“The Prince of Tides” unfolds primarily in flashbacks. Though he’s also looking back on his life, Leo King narrates “South of Broad” in a nonlinear sequence. Parts one and four are set in the late 1960s. Parts two, three and five are set in the late 1980s. While frustrating, this structure is not fatal. Yet, details about the characters’ maturation into adults are sketchy and the action screeches to halt before the climatic Part Five when Conroy pulls his readers back to the high school world of race and class tensions and football.

What worked to perfection in “The Prince of Tides” is a little dissonant in “South of Broad.” Conroy’s trademark soaring language develops a cohesive sense of place that wonderfully contrasts with and serves as a stable foundation for the nasty events and broken people. Yet some of the poetry is ponderous. The familiar storyline of dysfunctional people coping with a tragedies is again compelling. Yet it stumbles somewhat on the novel’s structure and melodramatic tendencies.

When Leopold Bloom King is nine years old, he finds a dead god named Stephen Daedalus King in a bathtub of bloody water. While the method behind the madness is a little tired and the music a little too much in a minor key, between Steve’s suicide and the novel’s last moments on a Bloomsday many years in the future, there is a still strong and memorable story.
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Sep 06, 2009 Mark Buckley rated it 2 of 5 stars

I found this book disappointing. I read Prince of Tides 11 years ago,enjoyed it and on the strength of that decided to give this book a go.

The introduction to the cast of characters is artificial, parading them out in a convenient sequence.

As some other reviewers have mentioned many of the characters are two dimensional.

The plot jerks around from 1969-1989 and gives the book a disjointed feel.

The final plot twist is heavily signposted and cliched.

The recurring praise heaped on Charleston S.C....more

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Feb 06, 2011 Kathy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Can we add a shelf for "wouldn't waste my time finishing this?" I made it about halfway, trying to talk myself into finishing it. Finally, I couldn't take the horrid, lame dialog, character mix and plotting. This paragraph, spoken by Sheba Poe, famous "sex goddess" movie star, trying to find her disappeared brother about sums it up;

"Full page column. Tomorrow morning. Herb's going to tell the story of the famous actress and her high school friends from Charleston who've come to hunt for her bro...more

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Dec 09, 2011 bookczuk marked it as couldn-t-even-finish

Shelves: favorite-author, give-me-my-time-back, set-in-my-stomping-grounds, southern-author

South of Broad. Stalled. Dead in the Water. Oh Pat Conroy! Where have you gone???

I usually love Conroy's books, despite the disfunctional and disturbed families often in them. His writing is his therapy. But even though this was a favorite author writing about a favorite place, it did nothing for me. Didn't draw me in or make the place alive in my mind's eye. It was like a bad coming of age novel, minus the cow and drive-in. I have abandoned the book for now, in the hopes that it is just my fra...more

4 likes · like · see review

Oct 14, 2009 Lisa added it

Shelves: abandoned

I am 29% into this book (no page numbers on the kindle...a little disconcerting). Not loving it, so far. The dialogue is really bugging me. Do people really talk like this? Is anyone else out there reading this right now and finding it irritating? I am compelled to keep going, because I want to see where it is going, but if the "witty banter" keeps up, I am going to have to give up. These are the oddest caricatures of Southern "folk" I have read in a long time.

Maybe I am from too far north (and...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Becky rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really struggled with the rating of this book. There were times I thought it was a five, then other times the story was bogged down by sections of overwrought prose that felt as though the author was trying too hard to conjure images which became lost in the sheer effort. But back to the parts that were a five- where the writing was superb. Pat Conroy tells an incredible story and one that is steeped in the bonds of family, love, friendship, faith and evil. Among these themes are people touche...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Stewart Pierce rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the book, but WOW. The Prince of Tides is tops in my view of Pat Conroy. However, this plot and these characters are so ridiculously contrived and badly acted as any I've ever read. Still, because it's Conroy and he's writing about life in Charleston, it's still pretty damn good. Bloomsday, 1969, and the new 'light in the loafers' neighbor from across the street is preparing to get the party started? What song does he choose? ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK FROM 1955??? Seriously, Pat. I was a f...more

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Jan 17, 2011 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pat Conroy’s latest, South of Broad, is a love story to both South Carolina and the sense of place one can have for one’s hometown. Contrary to popular belief, love stories aren’t always composed of sunshine and roses; instead they very often contain periods of darkness and clear eyed realism. South of Broad follows Leopold Bloom King and several of his friends through their initial meeting in High School during the very racial charged 1960s, through the first days of the 1990s. True to the sout...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

"I'll admit it; I've never watched or read The Prince of Tides. I didn't know who Pat Conroy was when I received this ARC from Doubleday. The book sounded interesting, so I requested a copy. I didn't know what to expect, and therefore, I probably have a different opinion than someone who is a huge fan of his work.[return][return]Since I didn't know what to expect, what I found was simply amazing. I completely fell in love with Mr. Conroy's descriptions of Charleston. It brought the city to life...more "I'll admit it; I've never watched or read The Prince of Tides. I didn't know who Pat Conroy was when I received this ARC from Doubleday. The book sounded interesting, so I requested a copy. I didn't know what to expect, and therefore, I probably have a different opinion than someone who is a huge fan of his work.[return][return]Since I didn't know what to expect, what I found was simply amazing. I completely fell in love with Mr. Conroy's descriptions of Charleston. It brought the city to life for me in a way that one visit there in the heat of summer was not able to do. The city itself is as much of a main character in the story as Leo, Sheba, Trevor, Molly and the other cast of characters, if not THE main character. His descriptions are lush and poetic. I really want to go back for another visit now to be able to see Charleston's charms in a completely new light.[return][return]I was a bit disappointed with some of the characters. I felt that they were either too harsh or I didn't quite understand their role in the circle of friends. They seemed to be the outsiders but still included in the inner circle for whatever reason. The fact that the story itself is about a group of friends, their successes and failures, loves and losses over the course of several decades definitely brings a The Big Chill vibe to the book. It's like Friends without the coffee shop and if they weren't quite as superficial and self-involved.[return][return]To me, in spite of the drama, suspense, mystery, and heartache, this book is about love. Love for self, love for family, love for friends, love for duty, but most importantly, love for a city and an entire culture. It wasn't the relationships that kept me reading each night until the wee hours of the morning. It was Leo's (and Mr. Conroy's) obvious love of the Lowcountry Charleston, SC that kept pulling me back. I've never read a book where the backdrop kept me riveted before, but there is always a first for everything.[return][return]There is a lot to like about this book and quite a bit more to love. We should all be so lucky to form such tight bonds with a group of friends as Leo does with his. To know that they would drop everything to help you out is a tremendously powerful group. But it's Charleston that really shines through, even with it's reluctance to integrate and stubborn ties to a culture that by all rights no longer exists in the rest of the country. For that's what makes Charleston the special place it is today.[return][return]I would and have begun to highly recommend this for others as one last beach read for the summer. I may even have to give his other works a try based on my reaction to this one. Thank you to Doubleday and Nan Talese for the opportunity to review this ARC!"(less)

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Dec 08, 2009 Anne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pat, Pat, is there any perversion you didn't visit in this book? Now I was with you on the Catholic issues, and murder was not out of the question, but the sicko father and the horrible scenes in the Tenderloin district moved into overwrought and in need of editing. Where was Nan on this manuscript? I agree with Kate that the Toad hardly seems like a kid, rather he sounds exactly like the 60 (?) year old author.
I would have given this book 5 stars for the amazing writing if it hadn't degenerated...more

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May 29, 2013 Bookreaderljh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2013

I really, really enjoyed this book!! The main character (though having gone through a lot) is a decent human being and his friends reflect that sensibility back to him. He is obviously the most glib, together person of the group which doesn't always fit with his mental health issues and trouble with the law. Conroy's dialogue is a joy to read (though I know of no-one who is that funny and/or pithy all the time - and here's a group of characters like that). I liked the set up of meeting this grou...more

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May 10, 2013 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Conroy is an amazing writer. Because of his descriptive narrative, I have to visit the Carolinas. But all is not beautiful. He holds true to his style in this novel as well: a gripping story of relationships built on the seamy, often hidden, crimes of depravity committed against the innocent.

Favorite quotes:

‘”What’re you worried about?”
“Just the little things. Incontinence, dementia, paralysis, unbearable pain, and the death itself.”’

“Silence can be measured out in shot glasses of time or it ca...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Sonja rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010-read, bookcrossing

South of Broad was a wonderful introduction to an author who writes with such beautiful detail, you feel you are riding along with the Toad on his early morning paper route, or later, standing beside him as he looks out over his beloved city of Charleston, SC. It was a wonderful story of a young man coming of age in a time when America was in great turmoil but his personal turmoil was even greater... South of Broad immerses you in a group of young people with a friendship so strong, it lasts tho...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Gordon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is difficult book to review. I was entertained well by the setting, plot and atmosphere: I found many of the characters to be unrealistic and stereotypical.

Charleston seems like a charming place with an evil underside that negates the beauty of the place. The plot was complex and moved well between past events and current action. The suicide of a young child was the catalyst for the story. I guessed at the motive for the suicide fairly quickly but it was not revealed until very late in the...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Judi rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is my first Conroy book 'audio' style. I love the lilting So Carolina accents. Maybe that is why I can forgive the 'witty' banter criticized by so many of you all. Leopold Bloom King is way too much of a cut up for his character. I hated that he, Conroy, killed off Leo's papa. And found the characters of Starla and Sheba almost unnecessary. The friendship and soulmate qualities of his senior year and the summer before and after I can completed embrace, as I also experienced it. Still best f...more

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Jan 29, 2013 Susy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Had Pat Conroy decided for once to keep violence to a minimum or just allude to its presence without the gory details, I might have given this book a 5 star rating. South of Broad is truly his homage to the city of Charleston and a cast of characters that one assumes are a composite of his lifelong friends.

As narrated by Leo,christened Leonard Bloom King, in tribute to his mother's love for all things James Joyce, the story begins the summer before his senior year of high school when the schools...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Suep rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 28, 2012 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club-2

I looove Pat Conroy. And this book flew for me. It's a beautiful love story to Charleston. But, oof, there are some gagworthy parts in here.

Some problems. This is my third Conroy book, the other two being Prince of Tides and Beach Music. Is South of Broad...just a combination of Prince of Tides and Beach Music? I mean, most writers have common themes and characters in their books but this was a bit much.

The main character will make you roll your eyes. All the time. He's too perfect.

All of the ch...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have not read Pat Conroy before although living in the South I had certainly heard of his fame! I listened to this on audio in the car. I enjoy visiting Charleston so was nice to be comfortable with the setting although quite a bit of the story takes place in San Francisco. It took a bit to get into the life of Leo King (the main character)who struggled to deal with the tragedy of his brother's suicide at a young age. The story follows a group of unlikely friends who forge a friendship their s...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Steven rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, favorites

South of Broad is not Pat Conroy's best book. But it would be hard to be his best book; they are all at a different level than those that are being written by his contemporaries.

Conroy's use of language is exquisite. I don't usually enjoy that, but with this author I do. His male characters ring true, not just in what they do, but in their internal dialogs. I'm a plot guy. I don't like the stories to be predictable. There were elements of South of Broad that were predictable. One that was very l...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Julia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature-fiction

Conroy is a master at creating characters, and Leo is a great one. However, except for his father, the rest are so wounded that the book felt like a battle zone coated in the veneer of southern "hospitality". I LOVED his description of his father:

"His curiosity about the earth ennobled his every waking moment. His earth was billion-footed, with unseen worlds in every drop of water and every seedling and every blade of grass. The earth was so generous. It was this same earth that he prayed to bec...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Janie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm enjoying this CD version of Pat Conroy's book, and so far it's inspired me 3 ways:
1. I found the recipe for Benne Seed Wafers he describes (I found the exact recipe at http://bit.ly/au49CA ) and I am dying to try them!
2. I want to visit Charleston as I am seduced by the beauty of Conroy’s descriptive prose
3. Even though I have a great vocabulary (I was a Catholic schoolgirl and I love NY Times crosswords) I need to improve mine. Did anyone notice even the "hillbillies" spoke better English...more

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May 25, 2012 Jan Hansen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Pat Conroy is a gifted writer, he develops interesting and complex characters and it is seldom that I'm not compelled to finish his books, because even if I'm not happy with his plot I am engaged with his characters and I want to know what happened to them. South of Broad is such a book. His hero is Leo, also known as Toad. when we are introduced to Leo he is a seventeen year old boy several weeks aaway from completing his probationary sentence after being found with cocaine in his pocket. He is...more Pat Conroy is a gifted writer, he develops interesting and complex characters and it is seldom that I'm not compelled to finish his books, because even if I'm not happy with his plot I am engaged with his characters and I want to know what happened to them. South of Broad is such a book. His hero is Leo, also known as Toad. when we are introduced to Leo he is a seventeen year old boy several weeks aaway from completing his probationary sentence after being found with cocaine in his pocket. He is an interesting young man: his mother is the high school principal, his dad is the science teacher, and his brother killed himself about three years ago, before the book started. In that first day, June 16, 1969 we meet Leo and his parents, the twins Niles and Starla - orphans, Chad and Fraser - siblings from the upper crust of Charlotte's oldest and richest and best known families; Molly - Chad's girlfriend; Trevor and Sheba Poe - Leo's new neighbors who are also twins; Ike Franklin - the son of his black football coach. The story mostly covers this groups friendship over a period of about 20 years. It is filled with outside conflicts, to name a few: pedophilia, abandonment, stalking, racism, southern racism, parental expectations, conditional love, unconditional love, pride, ostracism, character development, lack of character development, social structure and expectations, stratified social structure, being gay in southern 1969, AIDS epidemic in San Francisco,sexual molestation by Catholic priests, the rule of roman catholisicsm, and so on.
I found the book exhausting and not quite plausible. I like Leo, I like his character, that he was truly a friend, truly a good son, and a stand up guy. I'm not being sarcastic, I would really like to be this man's friend, except that the cost of being his friend was terribly high. I really think that Mr. Conroy tried to cover too much territory and I would have like a little better development of some of his characters, some of his conflicts. I found the twins: Niles and Starla, and then Sheba and Trevor, initially difficult to differentiate, particularly in the early parts of the book and really as they developed Sheba was such a caricature of a character (which I actually think was the point) and Starla was kind of ancillary. I mean we knew she had an awful life and she was terribly mentally ill, but she was still underdeveloped.
The part of the 1980's in San Francisco was well done, but again too much with too little development and why now? What's the point of rehashing all of that now? It was a horrible time! I worked as a nurse in that time, in Milwaukee and saw the devastation to young men and their families, the information was plausible, but what was the point now? Why not write this in 1990 when it might have done some good.
I was glad to see the end of the book, mostly because I was exhausted from all of the turmoil and I just wanted it to end.
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Mar 03, 2012 Brenna rated it 2 of 5 stars

This latest novel from native son Pat Conroy has been all the rage around here because it is set in Charleston in the 1960s and 1980s. I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on it since I moved here. I haven’t actually read much by Conroy, just “The Water is Wide,” his memoir of teaching schoolchildren on a very rural, impoverished South Carolina barrier island. His writing there was quite lovely, and his approach to his subject so compassionate, and his approach to writing about himself...more This latest novel from native son Pat Conroy has been all the rage around here because it is set in Charleston in the 1960s and 1980s. I’ve been looking forward to getting my hands on it since I moved here. I haven’t actually read much by Conroy, just “The Water is Wide,” his memoir of teaching schoolchildren on a very rural, impoverished South Carolina barrier island. His writing there was quite lovely, and his approach to his subject so compassionate, and his approach to writing about himself so wryly self-deprecating. I’ve been meaning to pick up one of his novels for quite a while.

So I finally got my hands on a copy of “South of Broad,” and I have to admit, my feelings are mixed. Conroy’s descriptions of Charleston are lovely and spot on – many passages read as an homage to this city that Conroy clearly loves. His words evoke the same feelings I have when I wander around downtown Charleston – the city’s charm fills me with a sense of joy and wonder.

Conroy also succeeds in creating memorable characters that you come to care about. His protagonist, Leo King, has had a troubled adolescence due to the suicide of his older brother when he was only nine and his brother only ten. No one can fathom why the tragedy happened, as Leo’s brother Stephen was a golden child, popular and well-loved and to all appearances, perfectly happy. Leo spends years after his brother’s death in mental institutions and in therapy. As the novel begins, he is in the summer before his senior year of high school, finishing probation for cocaine possession, friendless and in a strained relationship with his parents.

And then everything changes, as Leo makes several new friends and becomes a football star. It’s not quite as formulaic as it sounds, but almost. Yet the novel doesn’t focus on the high school years so much but rather on the intertwined lives of those high school friends 20 years later, when they come together to deal with a new tragedy befalling one of their members.

There is a lot of plot development in the novel, and drama involving the characters, who are, for the most part, quite well-fleshed out. It was a very fast read. I couldn’t help feeling at some points, however, that Conroy tried to put too much action into the novel, and it suffers from it. When the drama that brings the friends together is happily resolved, a new conflict emerges, and just when it comes to a serious boiling point, in blows Hurricane Hugo, and Conroy’s characters weather the storm and its aftermath together and the previous conflict is resolved in a relatively anticlimactic manner.

And then there is the central mystery throughout the novel, the mystery of Stephen’s suicide. Conroy gives several obvious hints early on as to the underlying cause, but Leo doesn’t learn the truth until the very end of the novel. Conroy was probably trying to use it as a device to come full circle back to the trauma that disrupted the trajectory of Leo’s life, but I found it somewhat annoying and patronizing of the reader, to in a sense make a major plot detail so obvious and then not address it until the very end of the novel. Ultimately this was the main problem I had with the novel as a whole: several times Conroy had a big buildup that resulted in a rushed, anticlimactic kind of denouement. The strong points of the novel were the characters and the descriptions of Charleston – he could have left out some of the “adventures” in the novel and made it much more strong and cohesive.

I still enjoyed the novel and found it very entertaining and worth reading. Reading it however, wasn’t a cathartic or even learning experience. While the experience of the characters and the characters won’t stay with me, Conroy’s descriptions of Charleston will – these passages, were, for me, the high point of the novel.
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Jan 21, 2012 Sorcia Macnasty rated it 1 of 5 stars

Good grief, Pat Conroy. This is the weepiest, most melodramatic thing I've ever had the pelasure of laughing my way through at an airport. The series of events and cast of characters is so hyperbolically implausible that by the time you're in an AIDS flophouse in San Fransisco, you're not even surprised that the zany home-town kids run into an old pal and now drug dealer.

Spoiler-alert for the hilariously over-blown plot points: Leo's mom was a nun and now spouts James Joyce like it's HER JOB, m...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Jana Perskie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

After a fourteen year hiatus, author Pat Conroy is back with a long awaited novel, "South of Broad." His last novel "Beach Music" was quite good, as is this latest offering. However, to my mind, nothing beats Conroy's "Prince of Tides," and the "Great Santini," although "South of Broad" comes close. There are similarities in all Conroy's novels - his characters, their lives, dilemmas, and the author's obvious love for the American South. The common thread which weaves its way throughout his work...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Selena rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked the general story & the main character of this book very much. But it all could have been toned down a LOT. Seriously??? This book is sooo full of cliches its ridiculous. Lets see: interracial relationships during the 60s, homosexuality, the abused starlet, the alcoholic mother, the child that yearns for parental approval, the high school senior year that changes lives, unrequited love, a crazy maniac, a rag tag football team forced to come together & rise above the competition,...more

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About Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy is the New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs and seven novels, including The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Lords of Discipline. Born the eldest of seven children in a rigidly disciplined military household, he attended the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. He briefly became a schoolteacher (which he chronicled in his memoir The Water Is Wide) befo...more

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Quotes from South of Broad

“What's important is that a story changes every time you say it out loud. When you put it on paper, it can never change. But the more times you tell it, the more changes will occur. A story is a living thing; it moves and shifts” — 26 people liked it

“Humanity is best described as inhumanity.” — 7 people liked it

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South of Broad

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