Product Description

PAT CONROY has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama. Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and their struggle to triumph over the dark and tragic legacy of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

Filled with the vanishing beauty of the South Carolina low country as well as the dusty glitter of New York City, The Prince of Tides is PAT CONROY at his very best.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9956 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10
• Released on: 2002-03-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For sheer storytelling finesse, Conroy will have few rivals this season. His fourth novel is a seductive narrative, told with bravado flourishes, portentous foreshadowing, sardonic humor and eloquent turns of phrase. Like The Great Santini, it is the story of a destructive family relationship wherein a violent father abuses his wife and children. Henry Wingo is a shrimper who fishes the seas off the South Carolina coast and regularly squanders what little money he amasses in farcical business schemes; his beautiful wife, Lila, is both his victim and a manipulative and guilt-inflicting mother. The story is narrated by one of the children, Tom Wingo, a former high school teacher and coach, now out of work after a nervous breakdown. Tom alternately recalls his growing-up years on isolated Melrose Island, then switches to the present in Manhattan, where his twin sister and renowned poet, Savannah, is recovering from a suicide attempt. One secret at the heart of this tale is the fate of their older brother Luke; we know he is dead, but the circumstances are slowly revealed. Also kept veiled is "what happened on the island that day"a grisly scene of horror, rape and carnage that eventually explains much of the sorrow, pain and emotional alienation endured by the Wingo siblings. Conroy deftly manages a large cast of characters and a convoluted plot, although he dangerously undermines credibility through a device by which Tom tells the Wingo family saga to Savannah's psychiatrist. Some readers may find here a pale replica of Robert Penn Warren's powerful evocation of the Southern myth; others may see resemblances to John Irving's baroque imaginings. Most, however, will be swept along by Conroy's felicitous, often poetic prose, his ironic comments on the nature of man and society, his passion for the marshland country of the South and his skill with narrative. 250,000 first printing; $250,000 ad/promo; movie rights to United Artists; BOMC main selection; author tour.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA In order to aid a psychiatrist who is treating his psychotic sister, Tom Wingo arrives in Manhattan and describes figures from his youth, among them an abusive father, a mother obsessed with being accepted by Colleton's tawdry elite, eccentric grandparents, stolid brother Luke, and sensitive, poet-sister Savannah. Despite the book's length, scenes such as Grandmother Tolitha's visit to Ogletree's funeral home to try out coffins, Grandfather's yearly re-enactment of the stations of the Cross, Mrs. Wingo's passive-aggressive retaliation by serving her husband dog food, Luke's Rambo-like attempt to keep Colleton from becoming a nuclear plant site, and a bloody football game with the team's first black player deserve students' attention. While Conroy's skills at characterization and storytelling have made the book popular, his writing style may place it among modern classics. He adds enough detail so that readers can smell the salty low-country marsh, see the regal porpoise Snow against the dark ocean, and taste Mrs. Wingo's gourmet cooking and doctored dog food. The story is wholly Tom's; Conroy resists the temptation to include the vantage points of other characters. It is the reluctance of Tom to tell all, to recount rather than recreate his family's past, and to face up to the Wingos' mutual rejections that maintain the tension just below the story's surface. It is Tom's coming clean about his past that lays bare the truth and elevates Prince of Tides above a scintillating best seller. Alice Conlon, Univ . of Houston
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Savannah Wingo, a successful feminist poet who has suffered from hallucinations and suicidal tendencies since childhood, has never been able to reconcile her life in New York with her early South Carolina tidewater heritage. Her suicide attempt brings her twin brother, Tom, to New York, where he spends the next few months, at the request of Savannah's psychiatrist, helping to reconstruct and analyze her early life. In beautifully contrasting memories which play childhood fears against the joys and wonders of being alive, Tom creates and communicates the all-consuming sense of family which is Savannah's major strength as a poet and her tragic flaw as a human being. Conroy has achieved a penetrating vision of the Southern psyche in this enormous novel of power and emotion. BOMC main selection.Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Conroy's best...
In Pat Conroy's masterpiece, The Prince of Tides, not much is going right in Tom Wingo's life. He drinks too much, has lost his teaching/coaching job, and his marriage is on the rocks. He grew up with an abusive father whose violent behavior left physical and emotional scars on all the Wingo children. His mother was more supportive, but was powerless to protect her children from her husband's wrath. She also put her social ambitions before anything else in her life. The only that has gone right in Tom's life is that he lived his entire life in the low country of Charleston, SC--one of the most beautiful and nurturing places on this earth.

Things come to a head when Tom learns that his beautiful and talented twin, Savannah, has tried to commit suicide again. As she lays comatose in a New York City mental hospital, Savannah's psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein, urges Tom to travel to New York. Doctor Lowenstein realizes that the only thing that can help save Savannah is to unlock the secrets of her terrible childhood (something that all the Wingo children have long suppressed and refuse to talk about). Tom flies to New York reluctantly, and at first, presents Dr. Lowenstein with a façade made up of humor, sarcasm and even rudeness. But Dr. Lowenstein eventually is able to break down Tom's protective shell to discover the horrors that took place during the Wingo's childhood. She also realizes that in trying to save Savannah, that this might also be Tom's last chance to save himself. But it turns out that Lowenstein has erected her own protective mask to hide her own unhappiness. With a remote husband and a spoiled son, Tom is able to turn the tables and help the good doctor in promoting a little self-healing as well.

The Prince of Tides is my favorite of all fiction books, and one of the most moving and emotional novels I have read. I think Conroy is one of our best living authors, and his words seem more like music than the written word. For those that know Conroy's background (including his own abusive father), it is disturbing to realize that much of this story is autobiographical in nature. I watched the movie after reading the book, and while the movie was quite good (especially the actors including Barbra Streisand, Nick Nolte and Blythe Danner), the movie can't hold a candle to the novel. Major storylines had to be left out and the plot greatly simplified.

If you can only read one Conroy, make The Prince of Tides your choice.

his best work
I reserve my five star rating for books that stand out as the best of the best. This is on the list of my top ten books, so I don't hesitate to put it as a five star book. Unlike some of Conroy's other books, this story line flows very easily, the plot seems reasonable, and it is as if you could have been there in South Carolina with the characters. This is a book for people who love to read-- it seems like Conroy is writing a long and beautiful poem, rather than a novel. But, don't get me wrong, the writing is not heavy or Faulkner-like that you can't get through it. It is a beautiful story of Tom Wingo as he deals with his sister's mental illnesses, his marital problems, and his childhood. As a person from the south, the book seemed very relevant in the way that family dynamics play out and the way childhoods are remembered. I would recommend the book for anyone who wants a captivating story, eloquent writing, and a taste of southern life. There is also some very good humor, too, which I appreciated!

THE PRINCE OF TIDES changed my life
THE PRINCE OF TIDES changed my life. I read it first when I was sixteen, back in 1992, and I didn't even know then how much the experiences and feelings developed in this magnificent story would eventually resemble my own. I read it every year and still sincerely cry because of pure identification. There is a bit of Tom Wingo in all of us, we all share that ambiguity of feelings about our family, land and life itself. Each character has their own complexity, their own ambiguity, which make them close and human more than anything else. As a reader, I can't love more a book than I love this one; it taught me things I needed to know and also things I may not have wanted to know at an age when I thought life would be easier. For these and more other reasons, I consider THE PRINCE OF TIDES as my personal guide book. Other Pat Conroy novels such us THE WATER IS WIDE, THE GREAT SANTINI, BEACH MUSIC, and, above all, THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE are also life-changing experiences in themselves. My e-mail adress is open to all those who want to share their views on this and other literary subjects. I'd love to learn so much more!