I've been outside potting all my leafy friends (not finished, yet, should be soon), going to the gym, preparing dinner for our bookclub (spinach ravioli; cucumber, tomato, Spanish olive, mushroom, onion, chick pea, salad; focaccia; blueberry cobbler and benne wafers for dessert), and scrubbing floors and bathrooms to prepare for said event. We discussed Pat Conroy's South of Broad. I hosted as this was my choice and for me, a re-read; the book is that good. The fact the story takes place in one of my favorite places on earth, Charleston, SC, is a bonus.
What's interesting is that while I immediately picked up the foreshadowing, the complexity of the plot and sub-plots, the amazing characters, I did not characterize the book as "dark", while all the others did. Later, I told my husband what the seven women had emphatically said. His comment, "Of course it is; it's very dark".
So what is it about me that this comes as a revelation? I don't disagree, but in the main character, Leo King, I saw such richness; such amazing strength and hope and compassion. And at the risk of sounding dilusional, maybe that's just the way I am.
