Beach Music Discussion

We had a lively discussion of Beach Music on June 18. Brenda gave us a short biography of Pat Conroy and lead the discussion of this complicated work. We also read excerpts from the text and commented on the language, structure, and themes.
Brenda brought fabulous crab cakes from the Pat Conroy Cookbook, and Judy brought his delectable white chocolate pistachio cookies. Several others brought goodies to see that the group was well fed.
We will not meet in July. At our next meeting, August 20, we will discuss The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. Would someone please volunteer to lead the discussion? Contact me at fhays@bcgov.net, or come by the Beaufort Branch Reference desk.
Below are highlights of Brenda's presentation from last evening.

We heard from his publisher that Pat Conroy had had surgery recently [unspecified] and would be unable to accept our invitation for the monthly book club discussion. We wish him a speedy recovery, all best wishes for health, and much success with his forthcoming novel. Mr. Conroy, we want you around a long time!

This month’s selection, Beach Music, features Jack McCall, a South Carolina Lowcountry native, who flees the South for Rome with his daughter, Leah, after his wife commits suicide. There he tries to find peace and escape the drama of his dysfunctional family. Jack is an author of cookbooks and a restaurant critic. But his search for solitude is disturbed by his sister-in-law, and by two school friends who want his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protestor and never resurfaced. The novel explores Jack's younger years during the Vietnam War-era, the lives of his in-laws who survived the Holocaust, and coming of age in the twentieth century. Beach Music a complex and rich story that covers three generations and explores a cornucopia of themes and subthemes: sibling and parent/child relationships, orphans and orphanages, emotional abuse, mental illness, alcoholism, class differences, politics, man against nature in a test of survival skills, self-discovery, faith and religion, patriotism, and peace. You’ll find Holy Mother sightings, nunneries and monasteries, a tree house, mental asylums, communication with dolphins, immigrant stories, Appalachian terror, seafood recipes, a manta ray devil fish, collegiate rivalry, military brashness, Southern traditions, speech and food ways, turtle conservation; a love letter, a suicide letter.
Many in attendance had not seen images or even heard of the monstrous manta ray. Brendagael showed an 1858 engraving from our South Carolina Room of the creature, who had been struck by William Elliott’s great harpoon, as described in the novel. The group of fourteen in attendance were split on the literary success of the novel overall, but agreed there were exquisite passages to be enjoyed again and again. Some embraced the novel without exception, while others were distracted and annoyed with some of the tangential stories that veered from the immediate circle of Jack’s friends and family. Brendagael passed around examples of the beautiful language from various parts of the book, and each had a turn in reading Conroy’s poetic meter aloud. This brought up points of discussion such as who was ultimately responsible for Shyla’s suicide, and Jack’s love/hate relationship with the South, and how the South was personified throughout the novel as its own character, illustrating Jack’s conflicted world view. Also discussed were Conroy’s recurring themes and characters in the larger body of his work.

Since its inception three years ago, the Beaufort Book Club has read a Conroy novel each year. We look forward to discussing South of Broad (available in libraries and bookstores everywhere, August 11, 2009) in the near future. “Per la vostra salute,” Mr. Conroy.



Brendagael Beasley~Forrest, MA, MSLS