Conroy's novel a love note to Charleston

FRIPP ISLAND -- If "South of Broad" is a love letter to Charleston, it is from an admirer whose ardor is tempered by the recognition of his paramour's flaws, her eccentricities and darker impulses. For all his gentle, and not-so-gentle, eviscerations of the city's gentry — some "fictitious" characters fare better than others -- Pat Conroy's affection for the city is palpable, and he delights in sharing with the uninitiated.

"It was wonderful for me to return to Charleston with this novel, because I never thought I did justice to the city for the effect it has had on me. And it has been overwhelming. I took my agent and her husband up there on a Saturday not long ago. I told them how beautiful it was, yet am always surprised by the amazing visceral effect that city has on the first-time visitor.

"I told them, 'My English teacher at Beaufort High School, Gene Norris, took me rambling on the peninsula when I was 15, showed me the Four Corners of Law on Broad Street, and then said, 'We are going to turn right now, and I'm going to change your life. There's nothing more beautiful, nothing lovelier than this land, nothing more private, more mysterious, more secret than South of Broad.' "

As a Citadel cadet, Conroy walked the streets of Charleston "under the influence of Thomas Wolfe" and the latter's walks through Brooklyn. At night, passing by homes hulking close to the street, he "glimpsed lives being led," and discovered he wanted to be a writer almost as much as his mother wanted him to. Today, relaxing at home, he reflects on how such experiences inform his first novel — and a provocatively titled one — in 14 years.

"In Charleston, though it was silent and not often spoken of when I was at The Citadel, you have to define yourself in relation to South of Broad, no matter what part of town you live in. Somehow, you have to make some consideration of where you fit, or don't fit."

Literary fireworks

As always, Conroy is a bracing antidote to a literary era hobbled by minimalism, academic fashion in place of storytelling, and a tedious fascination with the minutiae of domestic detail. His luxuriant prose effervesces, sometimes bubbling over, pulsing with character and event. Fully furnished, "South of Broad" leaves no motive unexamined, no emotion unexplored, no dark pathway of the heart untraveled. Notwithstanding its juicy references and melodramatics of plot, Conroy's new book is at least as notable for its humor, for its wisdom, for evocative turns of phrase that will stop you dead in your tracks.

To be released Wednesday by Doubleday, "South of Broad" is largely what readers have come to expect from the state's most celebrated novelist. And regardless of where one stands on the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink school of fiction, there is little doubt that Conroy gives his loyalists more than their money's worth.

That the then-News & Courier turned Conroy down on his very first job application -- as a cadet, he had hoped to have a delivery route downtown -- did not deter Conroy from making the unabashedly sentimental book's protagonist an N&C society columnist. Leopold Bloom King narrates the Charleston-set story in two time periods: in 1969, at age 18, struggling to find his place in the world; and in 1989, with a harrowing side trip to AIDS-ravaged San Francisco. Matters come to a head during -- what else? -- Hurricane Hugo.

Some real people are represented by their actual names, others with fictional names. Still others are composites. Conroy says the division was purely unintentional.

"It was probably inattention. For example, I had (Post and Courier columnist) Ken Burger in the book. I reminded myself I needed to change the name so Ken didn't sue me. And I forgot. I did change (former College of Charleston President) Alex Sanders' name to that of a fictitious judge, but others I simply forgot. It was accidental.

"But sometimes using real names is intentional. Someone who worked for me once called these things my little 'salutes,' naming a bridge after someone, or a street."

Conroy makes vivid what so many people "from off" have experienced but could not always articulate about the corridors of the landed gentry: the stately, almost immutable grace; the scowling old portraits of the mighty; the gentility "that is both the bedrock and quicksand of all social endeavors in Charleston."

Curiously, he began writing the book in Maine, at the summer home of friends Heyward and (Charleston novelist) Anne Rivers Siddons.

"We went up there for several summers to visit them. It's funny; when I was living in Italy, I wrote easily about the Lowcountry because I missed it so much. And Maine, too, was the opposite of Charleston. But I had trouble there because I am unnaturally friendly. Nobody talks to you. I had never encountered this."

Later, visiting the Siddons' peninsular Charleston home, Conroy "walked the streets to reacquaint myself with them. I tried to figure out the paper route that Leo King would have. Anne had access to everyone, as well. I went to a couple of parties with her. And one house leads to another."

A city within

In the inviting, book-lined office (marsh view, of course) he shares with his wife, author Cassandra King, one finds legal pads etched in long-hand, but nary a computer in sight ("I can't tell you what an illiterate I am on the computer, I'm a troglodyte.").

Signposts of Charleston are flecked about the Conroy home. He proudly displays photos festooning each wall, and a treasured stack of newspaper clippings just received: the original columns of Holy City icon Lord Ashley Cooper (aka, Frank Gilbreth), whose work exerted an influence on Conroy rivaling that of James Dickey.

"From the beginning, Charleston has had this magnetic effect on me." And with "South of Broad," Conroy finds himself linked to another literary lion, James Joyce, thanks to the character of Leo's mom, nun-turned-school principal Dr. Lindsay King and her preoccupation with "Ulysses."

Near the close, as Leo King takes stock of his own odyssey, he believes he has learned very little. One would argue that he had learned a great deal. Save for one last lesson: "Tragedy's easy. Happy is hard."

"You know, I'm starting to feel that myself." Conroy says. "When I wrote the early books, I didn't know anything about anything. Now, in my 60s, I think it is a source of knowledge to know you don't know much."

What he does know is that "South of Broad" is not the capstone of his career. There's more to come.

"I hope (this book) is just part of the continuum. I'm under contract to do an Atlanta novel, and I'm well into a new book, non-fiction, about my father. My brothers and sisters have collapsed in horror."