Beach Music: A Novel

This is a very well written sweeping story about a young man growing up in South Carolina and his first deep love of the Jewish girl next door. There are many threads woven into the story including his mother dying of leukemia, his parents’ broken marriage due to,alcohol, his crazy 4 brothers,living in Rome for a time, his wife’s parents’ background of the Holocaust, the Vietnam war and American protests against it, his love of his daughter,and his very close ties to his childhood friends. Excellent!

Much too long. The “court scene” is too contrived and strains credibility. Still, it was an enjoyable book, and I recommend. The WWII sections, while painful to read, could easily stand on their own: I recommend the book if only to read those sections. The graphic descriptions create such pathos and indignation, that it makes one want to “enter the story” to rectify the injustice and perversion.

At first I was dismayed to see the size of the book, big and long, but quickly was engrossed with the lyrical writing and beautiful storytelling. Its a book easy to put down and pick up again. I recently lost my husband and the storyteller in the book had lost his wife, so there was a lot of cathartic feelings expressed I could relate to. Im not sure how I missed knowing about Pat Conroy and his excellent writing skills and tales of the South, but I now will seek out more of his writings.

I read this book in my 20s and loved it so much I wanted to read it again. Now in my 60s, it touched me in a much deeper way. Pat Conroy is a great storyteller and I highly recommend this book. But be ready; it will touch you deeply.

Ive had so many copies of this book and give them away all the time. I love, love this book. Its such a great story and has so many amazing characters.

I love Pat Conroys writing style, and he told a beautiful story. However, I felt like Id already read this book once before since Id read The Prince of Tides; not to say the story was identical but the plot of the story was similar enough that I was in no rush to finish this novel like Id done with The Prince of Tides (which I read, non-stop, in three days because I was so wrapped up in the characters, the plot and the writing itself.) **Might have some spoilers** The items that were different didnt feel as if they were executed successfully. I am not sure the multiple story lines that were involved in this novel were integrated smoothly, and as a result, the reading was choppy and not altogether interesting all of the time. Sometimes, his characters were one dimensional, and thus they were boring. I kept hoping he would flesh out the father character as much as he did the mother character, and I kept waiting for his protagonist to grow up a bit. The protagonist did a bit in the end but it was so abrupt that it felt false and flawed. But Pat Conroy has a gift with words and his prose is wonderful. The mother-son arc of the story was touching and beautiful. I would recommend it as a good read but I doubt I would ever read this book again - and I keep re-reading The Prince of Tides.

Loved everything about it

My brother hooked me on Conroy. I found that I either loved his novels or liked them. Loves: Lords Of Discipline, The Great Santini, The Water Is Wide Likes: Prince Of Tides, Beach Music I’m about done with Beach Music and will be happy when complete. I agree with others that complain about so many subplots. The halocaust stories were too much and I found myself wanting to skip the chapters (I didn’t). This is a long book with near 700 pages. He should have somehow made two novels. This one is long and frankly depressing. Not a Christmastime reader! If you want a great Conroy novel, read The Lords Of Discipline.

This book is simply amazing. Conroy is inna class bu himself.

The plight of the Jewish people during WWII intertwined with storytelling as only Conroy can weave. Hard to put down. Gut wrenching at times. It was only 80 years ago that Jews were removed from their homes, starved, tortured, raped, murdered en masse because crazy people held crazy racial beliefs. Much of what we are seeing again today. The crazies today blame the sane for being crazy and therein lies the divide. We’d learn more from real history were it only being taught in schools. Of course there’s a sinister reason behind that. Doesn’t take a genius only someone that’s actually lived and observed humanity as opposed to an innocent child who believes anything they’re told, like Hitler’s youths.