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South of Broad by Pat Conroy

South of Broad is narrated by Leopold Bloom King. When he was 9, his older brother committed suicide, an act which haunted him for decades. During his senior year at a South Carolina high school, he formed a close knit friendship with a group of people who would become his lifetime friends. This group crossed racial and class lines, and twenty years later, they've come together again to find one of their own who has gone missing. Their stories of success and failure, marriage and divorce, and families that are close-knit and others that are murderous are classic Pat Conroy material. South of Broad has received mostly positive reviews with the Denver Post saying, "South of Broad - Conroy's first novel in 14 years - is rich and lovely. Conroy has some singular gifts; he brings the city and the people absolutely to life, pulling the reader into caring about the characters. Leo is an underdog, and he doesn't seem to be able to move beyond his high-school nickname of Toad - but then he does, and he is a fully realized character with both strength and flaws. The reader can't help but rejoice at his good fortune, and cry when tragedy strikes."