The complexities of Southern family dynamics from "summary" of The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The Southern family, that mysterious organism, is a creature of labyrinthine complexity, a tangled web of love and hatred, secrets and lies. It is a world where the past is always present, where the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons, and where the scars of childhood are carried into adulthood like burdens too heavy to bear. In the South, family is everything - it is the bedrock upon which all else is built. But this foundation is often shaky, built on shifting sands of resentment and rivalry. The children of the South are bound to their kin by ties that are both strong and suffocating, a love that is both fierce and destructive. In the Wingo family, we see these dynamics play out in all their messy glory. The wounds of the past, inflicted by a violent and abusive father, fester and infect the relationships between siblings, between ...
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