One of my friends, a native Richmonder who hasn't lived there in the last quarter century, says that the problem with Richmonders is that they really believe the world revolves around Richmond. He gives as an example the statement that Richmonders frequently make: "Rome is like Richmond. It is built upon seven hills."
He believes that Rome, having once been the capital of a world empire and still the seat of the Catholic Church, trumps Richmond, so they should say that "Richmond is like Rome." I point out that Richmond is the capital of Virginia and the former Confederate capital, has several pretty Catholic churches, and furthermore is not full of Italians and does not smell like garlic. And it IS built upon seven hills. I can still name them--can you? (That, of course, only applies to people who have lived there.)

It is not necessarily true that Richmonders believe the world revolves around their city. Mostly, this is because it rarely occurs to them that there IS any world much beyond Richmond herself, and what there is is almost entirely in Virginia, which DOES pretty much revolve around its capital.

So, you can imagine my pleasure when I noted that one of my companions at the beach this year was reading something called South of Broad. Naturally, in my mind, Broad street only exists in Richmond, and all fashionable districts are indeed south of it. And, thus, you can imagine how quickly my pleasure evaporated when I realized that the book was in fact about another charming Southern city--Charleston--which also has a Broad street.

If my annoyance was meager upon discovering a book NOT about Richmond, it could only grow from there--and did it ever.

South of Broad is Pat Conroy's latest oeuvre. While I'd never read any of Conroy's work before, I'd always sort of dismissed him on hearsay. I'd heard his writing called "the revenge of the weepies," and according to most I knew, it was all decidedly Chick Lit. Within the first chapter I realized that this was, indeed, Chick Lit. Worse, it's a specific form of Chick Lit. Jane Austen is serious Chick Lit; Pat Conroy is for girls who graduated at the bottom of their class of 12,000 from a giant Midwestern university, and therefore think that they're too well educated for Danielle Steele.

Anyone who's made a pilgrimage through a bar frequented by nerdy English majors (i.e., me) has probably heard the disparaging remark that something is "fraught with symbolism," "fraught with error," "fraught with meaning." South of Broad is just fraught. It's fraught with everything. I can't even begin to provide a summary of the story, because it's so completely convoluted that I couldn't possibly get it all in order. Let's just be content with some of the elements, shall we? South of Broad includes:

--aristocratic Charleston families and
--persevering black folks and therefore
--inherent racial tension especially once you add
--Southern white trash and
--late '60s integration.
--Descriptions of Charleston that make the truly beautiful city sound like a Sears catalogue
--teen suicide
--insanity (brought on by the suicide's little brother's discovery of grisly same)
--awkward teen love
--orphans
--bigamy
--Malicious insane man who is also a pedophile with mildly insane alcholic wife and
--twin children -->
--slutty sister
--gay brother who of course ends up with
--AIDS
--Homelessness and AIDS victims in San Francisco
--loving if amateur descriptions of a football game
--loving descriptions of the Citadel (at least I get the last two)
--a climax centered around Hurricane Hugo (did we really need to hear about the dead rotting cats? That was the only part of the damned thing that moved me)
--a mom who was once a nun
--a pedophile priest (Damnit, can't someone ever write about a pedophile Presbyterian? Those frigid Scotsmen can be horny and inapprop, too)
--frustrated love sacrificed at the altar of society which is symbolically sanctified by rescuing
--a stranded porpoise post-Hugo.

Dear God. I could go on, but I couldn't stomach it, and neither could you. Since one of Conroy's myriad themes is "How the Catholic Church can Fuck You Up," he must have gotten sucked into Catholicism enough to learn about litanies. This book reads like "1,001 Conflicts for Beginning Writers." Conroy seems compelled to have a crashing climax per chapter. Halfway through the book, I found myself wondering how many more shockers he could administer to the beleaguered psyche of his readers. Of course, the devotees of this sort of thing eat it up.

I was also a bit put off/surprised by the presence of not one, but two pedophiles. Either Conroy got jumped by a motorcycle gang as a child, or he wanted to be--I understand that Prince of Tides has a similar undercurrent. After slogging my way through this lurid loser, I don't feel any compulsion to try out his earlier work.

South of Broad did have one positive effect in my universe. I haven't been to beautiful Charleston for many years and just reading about it--no matter how awful the read itself--makes me want to buy a ticket on the Palmetto State Express. While I can't afford that, I can afford to make Charleston-style food. Time to dust off my copy of Charleston Receipts.


By the way, the Seven Hills of Richmond are: Shockoe, Church, Navy, Union, Gamble's, French Garden, and Council Chamber.