Southern
fiction is a genre which never lets me down. It’s produced such great
storytellers as Harper Lee, Cormac McCarthy and the legendary Mark Twain.
Another legendary writer in the southern tradition is Pat Conroy. Conroy’s 1986
novel “The Prince of Tides” is another classic of the southern tradition.
The novel
is told from the point of view of Tom Wingo, a local high school coach with a
wife and three young daughters. He loves his daughters, but he is also having
marriage problems with his wife who reveals to him she is having an affair.
This isn’t the main story of the novel, though. Tom’s history and how it
affects his sister, Savannah who is in a mental hospital, and hallucinating is
the main story. She is a poet in New York City and is a classic case of someone
who comes to the big city wanting to escape small town life. Tom meets with her
psychiatrist, Susan Lowestein. Lowenstein is a New Yorker through and through,
while Tom is a southern boy. This could set up what seemed like a culture
clash, but they are united in their desire to help Tom’s sister. Even more that
that it seems. There is an instant attraction Tom has to Susan.
The history
Tom tells Susan of the Wingo family is wide reaching and unusual. The Wingo
family is a family who can’t seem to do anything normally. There’s the story of
Tom’s grandmother who travelled the world, his Bible thumbing salesman of a
grandfather, his mom who wants everything to appear good on the outside while
everything is breaking apart and his father who is constantly trying to hit the
big time instead of being a simple shrimp boatsman. These are classic American
archetypes.
The Wingo
siblings, Tom, Luke and Savannah, lived a rather unusual and in some ways,
perfectly typical childhood. There is a rather shocking scene in their later
teens of a brutal assault. The book goes back and forth between the adulthood
and childhood of the Wingo family, and while there are lighter moments
sprinkled throughout the book, there’s also a lot of traumas in there as well.
Dysfunctional families are an area Conroy obviously knew well, and it shows in
this book, and other books by him like his later novel “South of Broad”.
However,
dysfunction and trauma aren’t the only things in Conroy’s books. There’s also a
lot of charm. Conroy’s writing was known for being lush and that doesn’t change
here. Conroy could really write. Stories of Tom being a football player, a road
trip the kids took to Florida, and his sister trying on a dress when she became
a older teenager are all charming. Conroy writes lovingly of both the American
south and New York City from an outsider’s point of view. Even though this is a
long book, Conroy keeps the story going with multiple stories of the Wingo
family and their various adventures. Later in the book, Luke becomes the focus
and his defense of his hometown from developers trying to pay off the
residents. While this could in the hands of a lesser writer feels tacked on,
with Conroy, it doesn’t.
“The Prince
of Tides” is well deserving of the critical acclaim it received back at it’s
time of publication, and I was engrossed by the Wingo family and their various
traumas and adventures. It’s a beautifully written novel and an adult one, as
well. I understand why so many people love this book. It’s not only solid
southern fiction, but also an honest reflection on childhood, adulthood, mental
illness and the complications that come with family. No one seemed to explore
this better than Pat Conroy did.
