Serendipity and The Bronze Horseman

My sleepy eyes took a moment to adjust to the foggy text that scrolled across my iPhone. It was early in the morning, and I had only just looked at my phone to silence the alarm.

Who is talking to me this early? I thought, rubbing my eyes.

The text then came into focus. It was my dear friend Amelia, who was traveling throughout Southeast Asia.

"Did you tell me to read The Bronze Horseman?" she asked.

"Yes!" I chatted back.

 "I can't put it down!!" she replied.

And just like that, two old friends half a world away from each other were connected by a shared love for a wonderful book.

Amelia and I grew up together; struggled through our awkward phases together, started to come into our own together. Life and college and marriage and travel has separated us, but when we connect, it's like we never skipped a beat.

A small way that we've maintained contact is through sharing book recommendations with one another every once in a while, though I'd say most of the time the books are just added to our lists and saved for later.

Which is what Amelia did when I told her about The Bronze Horseman; she made a mental note of it. I am led to believe that Amelia, as a world traveler, 1) does not have frequent or easy access to bookstores and 2) packs too lightly to carry every book ever recommended to her. I definitely understood her mental shelving of The Bronze Horseman.

I first read The Bronze Horseman my senior year of college, and instantly plummeted into the depths of its rich, powerful story of love and war. The story engulfed me. It was the kind of book that made me want to abandon all contact with the outside world -- classes, friends, family, boyfriend -- so I could curl up in bed and read.

Because Amelia might be the only person more obsessed with love and romance than I am (she once cried ten minutes into seeing The Notebook in the theater), I just knew she had to read it. I told her so. That was four years ago.

I tend to re-read my favorite books every couple of years, so when I delved into The Bronze Horseman last summer, I reminded Amelia again.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago, though, that she finally heeded my advice.

"I remember you telling me to read it a long time ago and I found it in a book swap in one of my hostels! I started it today and am on page 219 - I don't want it to end!" I could practically hear her excited voice jumping through her message. Equally excited, I knew that her coming upon The Bronze Horseman in a Cambodian hostel, miles and miles and oceans away, was completely, thoroughly, one hundred percent supposed to be.

Even though I haven't seen Amelia in over two years, I never felt closer to my childhood friend in our adult lives than in that moment.

So cheers to serendipity; to old friendships, beloved books, and passages of time.

(And oh...cheers to the author, Paullina Simmons, for bringing such a good book (and series!) into the world--one wonderful enough to connect two friends on two different continents. If you haven't read this book, DO!)

Book Review: South of Broad

Though we are much alike (I'd like to say in all the best ways), I never thought that my father and I would have the same taste in books. That opinion changed when he passed off a couple of Pat Conroy novels to me at our last family gathering. I'd never read Pat Conroy before, but because of the gentle urging of my father and the promise of sharing in something that he had enjoyed, I decided to open South of Broad and at least read the intro on the plane ride home.

Two pages in, I was immediately hooked. I didn't know where the story was going to take me but I didn't care. Pat Conroy's style of writing is so beautiful, so elegant that I clung to every word. Each sentence in South of Broad is so cleverly crafted and descriptive that I found myself marveling at his writing genius.

South of Broad takes us through the story of Leo King, a charming yet troubled southern boy that has a deep love for his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. Because Charleston is one of my favorite places in this world, I enjoyed Conroy's constant praise of the city's magnificent architecture and deep-rooted history. But what I really loved was how different and well-developed he made each of the characters in this novel.

Leo is the ugly younger sibling to a beautiful, smart, kind, and loving brother Steve. When tragedy takes Steve away from the family, Leo and his parents crumble. The loss of Steve weakens the family bond and sends Leo spiraling downward. We meet Leo at the age of 17, just as he is starting to build his life out of the messy hand he was dealt.

As Leo starts to build a life of happiness and normalcy, his stars are crossed with a group of teens his age that are too attempting to start over. He first meets Niles and Starla Whitehead, two orphans from the hills of North Carolina. On their first encounter, Niles and Starla are wearing orange jumpsuits with the word "Orphan" stitched across the back and are both handcuffed to a chair to ward off their attempts of running away. The orphan siblings have had a rough go at life; as they grow we watch how this turns one into a strong, good person and destroys any chance of happiness for the other. After meeting Niles and Starla, Leo is instructed by his parents to greet the new neighbors across the street. Walking up to their house with a plateful of cookies in his hand, Leo is dumbstruck by the beauty of his neighborhood's newest set of twins. Trevor and Sheba Poe are gregarious, dramatic, and painfully attractive. Their beauty is only disrupted by the horrible life that they, too, have led. After living a childhood so corrupt that they constructed an entire life out of make-believe, Sheba and Trevor are imaginative to the likes of nothing Charleston has ever seen before. Their characters take the city, and at times the reader, by surprise often. When Leo leaves the twins he goes on to meet his parents at the club for lunch. Upon arriving to the club Leo sees that his parents are dining with two of Charleston's most aristocratic families. The children of these families, Molly and Chad, have been kicked out of their private schools for being caught with cocaine. They, along with Chad's sister Fraser, must now transfer to Leo's school, of which Leo's mother is the principal. The elite attitude of these teenagers is palpable, and though they grow into likeable characters, their class always comes first. After all of these encounters, Leo goes on to meet Coach Jefferson--his high school's first black coach. Coach Jefferson has recruited Leo to be to co-captain of the football team with his son, Ike. The start of the relationship between white Leo and black Ike in the 1960s is rough. The friendship that evolves between the two men, though, is inspiring and life-long.

Leo is the core that brings all of the aforementioned characters together and the glue that keeps them friends for life. The dynamic of friendship between each character is so singular and intricate that they skirt the line of fiction and fact. Conroy constructs his characters in such a way that I felt as if they could walk out of the pages and be real. And, I wanted them to be. I loved each person in this book so much that I paced myself in reading the 500+ pages so that I could hold on to everyone and their story a little bit longer.

South of Broad is not only a brilliant tale of friendship and love in every form but a strong reflection of human character in tough times. In addition to the regular wear and tear of heart break, the characters of this novel live through the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the south, the AIDS epidemic of the 80s in San Francisco, a devastating hurricane, and the deaths and murder of people close to home. Through it all, though, they had each other, and that's where the beauty lies. In the words of Helen Keller, "alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

When I finished South of Broad, I hugged the book to my chest and expressed silent gratitude to my father for bringing this great story into my life. In mourning the end of my time with these characters, I'll give myself time to reflect on all of the wonderful people in my own story and all of the experiences that we've shared. Once I feel that I've given that sufficient time, I'll move on to the second Conroy novel my father gave me. You better bet that you'll be hearing from me on that one, too.