Sunday, April 12, 2009

New Pat Conroy Novel - Available for Pre-Order Now


Someone anonymously commented here a few days ago that Amazon.com is accepting pre-orders for the new Pat Conroy novel, South of Broad, for which so many of us have been anxiously waiting.

Because Pat Conroy is one of my favorite writers, and because the number of hits I get every time I post about Conroy indicates that I am just one of his many thousands of fans, I want to share that bit of good news today. So, for those who want to order this one early, here's where you can probably get the best deal, at least for now:




And, also from Amazon, comes the first synopsis of the book that I've seen:
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 teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death, and Leo, lonely and isolated, searches for something to sustain him. Eventually, he finds his answer when he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe, glamorous twins with an alcoholic mother and a prison-escapee father; hardscrabble mountain runaways Niles and Starla Whitehead; socialite Molly Huger and her boyfriend, Chadworth Rutledge X; and an ever-widening circle whose liaisons will ripple across two decades-from 1960s counterculture through the dawn of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

The ties among them endure for years, surviving marriages happy and troubled, unrequited loves and unspoken longings, hard-won successes and devastating breakdowns, and Charleston's dark legacy of racism and class divisions. But the final test of friendship that brings them to San Francisco is something no one is prepared for South of Broad is Pat Conroy at his finest; a long-awaited work from a great American writer whose passion for life and language knows no bounds.

...can't wait.

13 comments:

  1. Great book. Read it in galley and it is best yet.

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  2. EEK! Someone has already read it?! I am jealous beyond belief!!! It sounds terrific and I can hardly wait.

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  3. Due to a glitch in amazon.uk’s system, I believe I’ve written the only crime thriller in the UK that doesn’t appear on amazon.co.uk. My publisher’s many other titles are listed, and my book can be ordered from all other uk online suppliers, as well as amazon sites around the world, from Japan to New Zealand, but Amazon.uk refuse to acknowledge their technical error. They insist my book is displayed on their website. It isn’t.

    I’m an insignificant individual, powerless to influence this huge corporation, but their indifference has incensed me. I’m attempting to battle amazon.uk’s virtual monopoly of the uk online book market by asking readers in the USA to order my inexpensive paperback through other online suppliers like amazon.com

    If you would be kind enough to consider supporting my campaign against a faceless corporation, please check out my blog for details of Cut Short by Leigh Russell.

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  4. I've been waiting for years for the new Pat Conroy book. Can't wait until this is published!

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  5. Anonymous, you dog, you...you do realize how jealous your making everyone, don't you/ :-)

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  6. Me, too, Kaye, me, too...I've been looking forward to a new Pat Conroy novel for years. At least, now, we can begin the actual countdown to the day it hits bookstores.

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  7. Anonymous, this one should be a best seller right out of the shoot based on all the pent up demand for something new from Conroy that's built over the last year or so.

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  8. Like the rest of you, I absolutely can't wait for this book to come out and vow to read it the first day I can get my hands on it.

    It should be fun Sam if you do the same and we review it at the same time.

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  9. That does sound like fun - but quite a challenge to read it in one day. I'm definitely getting it hot off the presses, though, and will read it pretty quickly because it's impossible to resist tearing into a new Conroy novel.

    Let's see what happens... :-)

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  10. Ha ha....I meant to say that I would start it the day it comes out!!!

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  11. Much better...you scared me there for a second. The read-a-thon is still too fresh on my mind. :-)

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  12. I can't wait to read it and have written a Squidoo lens about it. My hubby purchased it for me the day it came out but I am trying to hold off until my Edisto vacation next month. A great place to read any of Pat Conroy's books.

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  13. Do let us know what you think of it, Nancy. The mixed reviews it is receiving are starting to bug me...hope it's better than the general consensus so far.

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I always love hearing from you guys...that's what keeps me book-blogging. Thanks for stopping by.