The saga takes place in the wealthy and prestigious neighborhood
called South of Broad, in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. The main character, Leopold
Bloom King is 18, awkward, painfully shy, friendless and finally beginning to
recover from the traumatic suicide of his older brother and hero.
Leopold's (Leo's) recovery is especially challenging since
Leopold found his brother's body—and since their mother continues to be
furious and verbally abusive to Leo because his brother, and clearly her
favorite son, died instead of him.
After years of counseling and a stay in a mental health institute
being treated for depression, Leo is lonely and adrift, but he also is
friendly, out-going and more than ready to make friends. He finds them in a tightly-knit group of high
school misfits: his new neighbors - the exotically beautiful, talented and
troubled twins, Sheba and Trevor Poe;
Ike Johnson, the son of Leo's new African American football coach (a
first in the recently desegregated south);
Niles and Starla Whitehead, a teenage brother and sister, recently
arrived in town and already in trouble with the law; and three South of Broad
Blueblood teens, Chad and Fraser Rutledge and Molly Huger. Surprisingly (strangely perhaps) Leo meets
and becomes friends with all of them in one, very eventful, day.
South Carolina's legacy of racism and class divisions are the
background of the story, which weaves its way through two decades of the
friendship that binds them together through good and bad marriages, hard-won
successes and devastating problems.
Finally their friendship is tested in an unimaginable set of
circumstances. Then, with no warning at all, right out of the blue, comes the
twisted ending. For me, this was the
final piece of a story that already become over-the-top unbelievable.
-----------
Full disclosure: I was
part of a very small minority of my fellow Books, Brew and Banter club members
who did not particularly like this book.
For me, the story became a soap opera, overdone from the plot, to the
dialogue, to the over-the-top writing.
I know that Conroy is an award-winning, respected author of
long-standing. A number of reviewers
said this book was not one of Conroy's best.
I'll take them, and my fellow Book Club members, at their word and try
another of his books.—Gail Stilwill
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