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Description edit
PAT CONROY, America’s preeminent storyteller, delivers a sweeping novel of lyric intensity and searing truth–the story of Jack McCall, an American expatriate in Rome, scarred by tragedy and betrayal. His desperate desire to find peace after his wife’s suicide draws him into a painful, intimate... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Jack McCall: Main character, narrator of story. Widow, Father, food/travel writer
- Mike: High School Friend to Jack; Producer; intervenes in Jack's life
- Leah: Daughter who travels to Italy with Jack
- Lucy McCall: Mother of Jack and his four brothers, Dupree, Dallas, Tee and John Hardin
- Dallas: Brother to Jack
- Mike Hess: One of Jack's best friends, who grew up to be a Hollywood producer/director
- Tee: More emotional brother to Jack
- John Hardin: youngest of the McCall brothers; suffers from schizophrenia
- Dupree: Brother to Jack
- Ledare: Old High School Girlfriend to Ledare; Divorcee
- Shyla: Wife of Jack who killed herself by jumping off of the bridge
- Max Rusoff: Max Rusoff is also known as "The Great Jew". The narrator, Jack, obviously loves Max. Max's story is one of sadness and success.
- Dr. Pitts: Add a description of this character.
- Betsy
- Ruth Fox
- Mama
- Jordan Elliott
- Martha
- Ginny Penn
- Skeeter
- Sherman
- Freddie
- Kruger
- Jane
- Maria
- Sonia
- Silas
- Johnson Hagood
- Margaret
- Esther
- Silvia
- George Fox
- Capers Middleton
- Grandma
- Stefan
- Anna Singer
- Elizabeth
- Berger
- Harriet
- Shealy
- Paulina
- Natasha
- Mottele
- Dr. Brill
- Worrell
Quotes edit
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“It was here we gathered to say farewell to the sunburned, dark-complexioned days which finger painted the river in the tenderness of its insomniac retreat”
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“Because when you have been hurt you lose your trust in the world,” I said. “If the world’s mean to you when you’re a child, you spend the rest of your life being mean back.”
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“I think they listen to the waves. I think they just love beach music.”
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No story is a straight line. The geometry of a human life is too imperfect and complex, too distorted by the laughter of time and the bewildering intricacies of fate to admit the straight line into its system of laws.
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Pain doesn’t travel in straight lines. It circles back around and comes up behind you. It’s the circles that kill you.”
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American mothers teach their sons how to break a girl’s spirit without even knowing they are imparting such dangerous knowledge. As boys, we learn to betray our future wives by mastering the subtle ways our mothers can be broken by our petulance and disapproval. My own mother provided me with all the weaponry I will ever need to ruin the life of any woman foolish enough to love me.
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It never occurred to Tee that vacillation was a form of taking sides that betrayed all parties.
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The South’s got a lot wrong with it. But it’s permanent press and it doesn’t wash out.”
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American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.
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But no one walks out of his family without reprisals: a family is too disciplined an army to offer compassion to its deserters.
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Her view of men was one-dimensional, but not inaccurate: men were prisoners of their genitalia and women were the keepers of the keys to paradise.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers
Setting & Locations edit
- South Carolina
- Waterford River
- Rome
- Charleston
- America
- Italy
- Venice
- Kironittska
- Vietnam
- Atlantic
- Columbia
- Eastern Europe
- California
- Atlanta
- Poland
- Hollywood
- Warsaw
- Auschwitz
- Shvla
- Gulf Stream
- Bull Street
- Savannah
- Gestapo
- Paris
- New York
- Latin
- Trastevere
- Pollock Island
- Georgia
- Russia
- Vatican
- North Carolina
- Cossack
- England
- Pacific
- Yiddish
- Mexico
- Berlin
- Ukraine
- Citadel
- Greenville
- Ohio
- Germany
- Dock Street Theater
First Sentence edit
In 1980, a year after my wife leapt to her death from the Silas Pearlman Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina, I moved to Italy to begin life anew, taking our small daughter with me.
Themes & Symbolism edit
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: N.A.Talese
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1995
ISBN: 0385413041
Page Count: 628
Publisher: N.A.Talese
Country: USA
Publication Date: 1995
ISBN: 0385413041
Page Count: 628
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: PS3553.O5198 B43 1995
- Dewey: 813.54
Subjects edit
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