The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

(Please bear with me; this is my first attempt at a real book review.)

Pat Conroy must have a love/hate relationship with the South. His novel, The Prince of Tides, is both an homage to and a condemnation of Southern-ness. It is the story of Tom Wingo, whose twin sister Savannah has just tried to kill herself. Again. Tom travels to New York City (which he holds in a most healthy contempt) to attempt to save his sister by telling the story of their childhood to her psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein. Using this conceit, Conroy is able to travel between the quintessential South (the small, low-country town of Colleton, SC) and the quintessential North (New York City). Tom, Savannah, and their older brother Luke have had a horrendous childhood, once which left them all severely scarred. By exploring this childhood and the events that turned them into the people they are now, Tom attempts to save both his sister and himself as well.

Tom's life is falling apart: he's been fired from his job as English teacher/football coach, his wife is having an affair, and his sister is struggling with mental illness. He learns much about himself while attempting to help his sister's psychiatrist reach into their damaged past. Ultimately, he airs a dark secret that the family has hidden for years, which may just be the key to Savannah's salvation.

Conroy’s prose is simply beautiful. There are times when I wish he’d been a tad less pretentious with his language, but his descriptions of the Carolina low-country are spot-on and gorgeous. He delves into the theme of family relationships and how those relationships make us who we are, how our past frames the person we become. He also transposes Luke’s severe love of the South with Savannah’s severe hatred of and disgust with it, while allowing Tom to fall somewhere in the apathetic middle.

I’m not a Southerner by birth, but I’ve lived in the South now for about eight years, and many of the people, places and attitudes in the book are familiar to me. Being a transplanted Yankee, I sympathize much more with Savannah than with Luke, but I share all three Wingo children’s love of the South’s beautiful landscape. And, ultimately, much more than Tom’s or Savannah’s struggles, that is what the novel is about: the South, personified, and the individuals she produces from that rough beauty.

As Savannah says near the end of the book, “The South requires that you give up too much of what you really are to even consider living here.”

This would be a perfect read for anyone participating in the Southern Reading Challenge. I plan to look for more of Conroy’s work in the future, as I really, really enjoyed this book.

Now on to Jane Eyre!