Beach Music - a review

Beach Music

By Pat Conroy

Nan A. Talese, Doubleday 1995

I read this book first sometime in the fourteen ears since it was first published. I recognized many scenes and episodes but others shone anew from the pages as I read them just recently. There is a long section and vivid description of Rome, the food, neighbors and neighborhood where Jack and his daughter Leah live. Jack’s wife Shyla committed suicide and Jack took Leah to Rome from the South Carolina town where thy lived to recuperate in Rome.

The book is a search for the reasons for the suicide, a catch-up on the seven years in Rome with Jack’s family and friends.

High School and college days, the 60’s, anti-Vietnam battles, betrayal. Reunion and some reconciliation are depicted with vigor and freshness. Two grueling sections of the Holocaust help in trying to understand Jewish Shyla’s life and suicide.

It is a very complex and interesting book and worth the time to reread and catch up with times and issues that are decades behind us that shaped our lives and our country.