Beach Music

I just finished up "Beach Music" by Pat Conroy and loved it. The main story follows Jack McCall, who flees to Rome with his young daughter Leah after his wife Shyla has committed suicide. He leaves behind a bevy of colorful family and friends in an effort to escape his torment and begin a new life in a new land. As a travel writer by trade, Jack is able to pick up and live wherever he chooses. However, he soon receives a telegram from his brother that will finally bring Jack back to South Carolina to face his demons and learn the stories of all those he loves.

Conroy has the ability of dropping crumbs along the way leading you to each character's hidden story. He touches on times in history involving the Holocaust and the Vietnam War -- each decade so real that I don't even want to think about the horrors. But it is these horrors that have come to shape the characters and they are all part of a finely interwoven story with South Carolina as the stage for the grand finale.

I enjoyed reading this book because I was going through a difficult time while reading it. I had just lost my mother - and found myself relating to the McCall way of coping with loss - with humor and reliance on your family. While this is a book about tortured souls, it is also a book that holds great promise filled with love and hope and devotion.