Southern to the bone

I haven't seen any mention of Pat Conroy. His Beach Music is a great Southern tale. Conroy does not publish anywhere NEAR enough for me. The Prince of Tides is another. Have you read Boo? the expose on the Citidel?
Powerful, gryping, hard to put down writing.

I adored The Prince of Tides and am currently stalled at 2/3s of the way through The Great Santini (due to being busy with other things not lack of interest). I own Beach Music but I get the feeling I'm going to need to take a Conroy sebatical after reading the first two right in a row. I love his work but I think I need a breather before 800 more pages.

Conroy suffered a sort of writer's block for a while. I've heard him say that after several successful novels, people always expect you to top yourself, and he had trouble dealing with that. I think Beach Music proves that---it wasn't his best.

His biography of his basketball career at the Citadel My Losing Season was one of the best books I've ever read and I don't even like basketball.

If you enjoy Pat Conroy, a must-read is an early work of his called The Water is Wide. It was a wonderful story based on his experience as a teacher.

And made into a very fine movie called "Conrack."

I'm halfway through The Prince of Tides right now. I do love that book--no gargoyles, just defiled angels.

#3> I agree with you that Beach Music was not as interesting as Pat Conroy's earlier novels. I liked The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini. Last August his new novel South of Broad was published but I have not tried to check it out of the library yet. Several reviews said it was great but I found a couple that said he is out of ideas and one that said there was too much happening as though it was written as a movie script. I purchased a copy of The Water is Wide right after seeing the movie during its first run many years ago.

I think it's interesting that there has been very little said (here and out in the world of readers) about South of Broad. Is this because it was not a very good book? I think so. I was very disappointed in this story. It's as if you could almost mark the parts of the book that were written in pieces, then very unartfully strung together to make a story. Some scenes read beautifully, but were out of place in the story. The relationships between blacks and whites were forced; as was the tying in of many real happenings with the story. I really disliked the over-the-top prose at the beginning of the story and it almost kept me from finishing the book. Anyone else have thoughts on this one?