The Prince of Tides (1987) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Tom Wingo: Protagonist. A man who has lost his way. Grieving the death of an older brother, and then losing his job as a high school teacher, he learns that his twin sister has just been hospitalized for attempting suicide. Says "I had ambushed myself by believing, to the letter, my parents’ definition of me."
• Savannah WIngo: Twin sister of Tom Wingo. A successful writer, her attempted suicide sets the story in motion.
• Luke WIngo: Tom Wingo's older brother. His untimely death causes Tom's decline.
• Susan Lowenstein: Savannah Wingo's psychiatrist. She is a Jewish. She is married to Herbert Woodruff, a celebrated violinist, and is the mother of Bernard Woodruff, who is in high school.
• Callanwolde: The name of a large estate in Atlanta, by extension, this becomes the name the Wingo children give to an evil giant they discover on the estate. This giant will terrorize the Wingo family and be a source of much of their psychological damage. His real name is Otis Miller.
• Bernard Woodruff: Spoiled son of Susan Lowenstein and Herbert Woodruff. He plays violin and would like to learn how to play football.
• Lila Wingo: Mother of Luke, Tom and Savannah Wingo. Wife of Henry Wingo. Tom says "we never knew about her dreams, for my mother kept us strangers to her own interior life."
• Tolitha: Mother of Henry Wingo and grandmother of Luke, Tom and Savannah Wingo. Married to Amos. She went to great lengths to acquire a world view.
• Herbert Woodruff: Husband of Susan Lowerstein and father of Bernard Woodruff. He is a famous violinist.
• Henry Wingo: Father of Luke, Tom and Savannah Wingo. Husband of Lila and son of Amos and Tolitha. A brutal husband and father. The line "If Henry Wingo had not been a violent man, I think he would have made a splendid father" builds a sense of foreboding.
• Sallie Pierson: Tom Wingo's wife. She was the daughter of mill workers, and works as a doctor.
• Grandpa: Add a description of this character.
• Todd Newbury: Son of Reese Newbury. Is in the same class in school as the Wingo children.
• Amos Wingo: Henry Wingo's father. Tolitha's husband. He sells bibles, carries a cross for three hours throught the streets of Colleton every Good Friday, and has a very personal relationship with Jesus.
• Papa John Stanopolous: Tom's step-grandfather?
• Monique: Mistress of Herbert Woodruff.
• Renata Halpern: A writer of children's stories. Jewish, she grew up in Brooklyn.
• Eddie: Has an apartment
• Tommy
• Reese Newbury: Wealthiest man in town. He has one child, Todd. He is very acquisitive of property.
• Sasser: Policeman
• Sarah Jenkins
• Isabel
• Jennifer Lynn Wingo: Eldest child of Tom and Sallie Wingo.
• Christopher Blackstock
• Lucy Emerson
• Toni
• Mr. Fruit: He directs traffic in Colleton.
• Mr. Carlton Roe
• Caesar: The bengal tiger.
• Joop: The Wingo family dog.
• Carolina Snow: The albino porpoise. Symbol of good luck.
• Mrs. Barber
• Sambone
• Madame Soltner
• Johnny Grindley
• Margarita
• Martha Randall
• Madison Kingsley
• Farley Bledsoe
• Mrs. Goldberg
• Isabel Newbury
• Norton
• Randy Thompson
• Rose Aster
• Bettina Potts
• Sigmund Halpern
• Floyd Merlin
• Mr. Woodruff
• Lizzie Thompson
• Sidney Rosen
• J. William Covington
• Mrs. Regenstein
• Patrick Flaherty
• Chandler
• Lucas
• Dr. Keyserling
• Wingos
• Winthrop Ogletree
• Sue Ellen
• Rose McKissick
• Benji Washington
• Sharon McKissick
• Mr. Brighton
• Mr. Beavers
• Father Günter Kraus
• Boisfeuillet Gailliard
• Christine Kingsley
• Aaron Greenberg
• Bill Lundin
• Bathsheba
• Lindsay McKissick
• Eddie Detreville
• Jack Cleveland
• Gregory McKissick
• Winston Shadrach Wingo
• Otto Blair
• Sarah Poston
• Blaise McKissick
• Mr. Eustis
• Sams
• Nellie Rae Baskins
• Wilhelmina Jones
• Jeff Galloway
• Smitty Smith
• Ruby Blankenship
• Oscar Woodhead
• George Lanier

Quotes edit see section history

• “But in the unconscious, I began to encounter both wild fruit and vast disciplined vineyards. I tried to censor the superfluous or the commonplace, yet I knew large truths lay hidden in the clovers, sweet grasses, and wild mint.”

• “I do not know, however, when my mother and father began their long, dispiriting war against each other. Most of their skirmishes were like games of ringolevio, with the souls of their children serving as the ruined captured flags in their campaigns of attrition. Neither considered the potential damage when struggling over something as fragile and unformed as a child’s life. I still believe that they both loved us deeply, but as with many parents, their love proved to be the most lethal thing about them. They were remarkable in so many ways that the gifts they bestowed almost equaled the havoc they so thoughtlessly wreaked.”

  Tom Wingo

• “Rape is a crime against sleep and memory.”

• “My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call. I grew up slowly beside the tides and marshes of Colleton; my arms were tawny and strong from working long days on the shrimp boat in the blazing South Carolina heat. Because I was a Wingo, I worked as soon as I could walk; I could pick a blue crab clean when I was five. I had killed my first deer by the age of seven, and at nine was regularly putting meat on my family’s table. I was born and raised on a Carolina sea island and I carried the sunshine of the low country, inked in dark gold, on my back and shoulders. As a boy I was happy above the channels, navigating a small boat between the sandbars with their quiet nation of oysters exposed on the brown flats at the low watermark. I knew every shrimper by name, and they knew me and sounded their horns when they passed me fishing in the river.”

  Tom Wingo

• “This has not been an easy century to endure. I entered the scene in the middle of a world war at the fearful dawning of the atomic age. I grew up in South Carolina , a white southern male, well trained and gifted in my hatred of blacks, when the civil rights movement caught me outside and undefended along the barricades and proved me to be both wicked and wrong. But I was a thinking boy, a feeling one, sensitive to injustice, and I worked hard to change myself and to play a small, insignificant part in that movement—and soon I was feeling superabundantly proud of myself. Then I found myself marching in an all-white, all-male ROTC program in college and was spit on by peace demonstrators who were offended by my uniform. Eventually I would become on of those demonstrators, but I never spit on anyone who disagreed with me. I thought I would enter my thirties quietly, a contemplative man, a man whose philosophy was humane and unassailable, when the woman’s liberation movement bushwhacked me on the avenues and I found myself on the other side of the barricades once again. I seem to embody everything that is wrong with the twentieth century.It was my sister who forced me to confront my century and who finally freed me to face up to the reality of those days beside the river. I had lived life in the shallows for too long and she led me gently toward the deeper water where all the bones, wreckage, and black hulks awaited my hesitant inspection.The truth is this: Things happened to my family, extraordinary things. I know families who live out their entire destinies without a single thing of interest happening to them. I have always envied those families. The Wingos were a family that fate tested a thousand times and left defenseless, humiliated, and dishonored. But my family also carried some strengths into the fray, and these strengths let almost all of us survive the descent of the Furies. Unless you believe Savannah ; it is her claim that no Wingo survived.I will tell you my story.Nothing is missing.I promise you.”

  Tom Wingo

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• South Carolina
• New York City
• North Charleston
• America
• Atlanta
• Georgia
• Lila
• Clemson
• Florida
• Miami
• Manhattan
• South Camlina
• Melrose Island
• Germany
• Rosedale Road
• United States
• Atlantic
• Savaimah
• Vietnam
• Bengal
• Central Park
• Korea
• Barbados
• Prague
• Hamburg
• Lutece
• Stone Mountain
• Europe
• Bellevue

First Sentence edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Pat Conroy (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Frank Muller (Reader) - Probably best reader in the business.

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3553.O5198
• Dewey: 813.54

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• The Prince of Tides (IMDb): Staring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand

More Books Like This edit see section history