Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
HarperCollins Publishers (1988), Hardcover
Description
Headstrong, exuberant, and independent, Lucy Bondurant is a devastating beauty who will never become the demure Southern lady her mother and society demand. Sheppard Gibbs Bondurant III, Lucy's older cousin, is too shy and bookish to become the classically suave and gregarious Southern gentleman his family expects. Growing up together in a sprawling home on Atlanta's Peachtree Road, these two will be united by fierce love and hate, and by rebellion against the narrow aristocratic society into which they were born. Anne Rivers Siddons's classic novel vividly brings to life their mesmerizing, unforgettable story-set against the dramatic changing landscape of Atlanta, a sleepy city destined for greatness.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Dnorthup
Not since Joyce Carol Oates's We Were the Mulvaneys have I been so totally immersed and emotionally impacted by a novel. The highs and lows of the life of Shep Bondurant and his cousin Lucy and those that move in circles around them drew me in from the very start at Lucy's funeral and refused to
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release me until it all came to a close 815 pages later. The idealic life of the wealthy Atlanta families of the 50's masked unspeakable horrors and unrelenting joy as these characters move toward what they are "meant to be." Lucy arrives in Shep's life and both saves and threatens to destroy him and everything that he holds dear. His relationship with his distant parents and controlling, manipulative Aunt Willa (Lucy's mother) and his nearly perfect relationship with Ben and Dorothy Cameron and their children Sarah and Young Ben, especially Sarah, are formed and reformed around Lucy and her behaviors. Siddons is able to move the novel in unexpected directions and avoid what the reader thinks is going to happen making the read totally compelling and immersing. She avoids falling in to any predictalble literary traps that Southern fiction can set for the author and for the reader. This is a truly original novel and Anner Rivers Siddons at her absolute best. It is at the same time Southern, Gothic and Tragic and every word well crafted and full of import. This is a novel that should not be overlooked or discounted. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kimmyjoe
An excellent book that explores the darker side of life in the wealthy community of Buckhead, GA druing its prime. One of my favorite historical fictions. A must read for anyone who has lived in Atlanta.
LibraryThing member mrs.starbucks
Peachtree Road is a sweeping Southern magnum opus, centering around Old Atlanta and Buckhead. It follows the lives of Lucy and Shep Bondurant, first cousins with an incredibly close bond. The synopsis on the back may lead you to believe that it’s about Lucy (even though the narration is done
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entirely by Shep), but in a sense it is really about neither; it’s about a time and place and a generation disintegrated by its own weight and glittering “perfection.” Ms. Siddons’ prose is rambling and excessive and heady, much like the unconquerable honeysuckle vine whose scent seems to drift directly out of the pages. The ultimate plot may remind you of V.C. Andrew’s books, but done with style, grace, and almost a little bit of wry humor. If Peachtree Road is anything, it is extremely well written. At certain times it’s almost too much: too much description, too much tragedy, too many characters and themes, too many pages left towards the inevitable conclusion that you only begin to accept around the same time Shep Bondurant does. It’s almost as exhausting just to read as it is for Shep (and others) to be bathed in “Lucy-ness,” but in the end I would say its worth it. The last two paragraphs may leave you scratching your head, but for myself, I’ve come to the conclusion that only good things followed, even if they weren’t talked about (and after 800 pages, I don’t think I could have mustered the energy anyway). While it’s true that the book could have been honed down and chrystallized with some good editing, I would almost say that doing so would have diminished it in some way. That having been said, at least one part could have been cut out cleanly due to the impact it should have had but didn’t.My final verdict is this: I will read this book many times in the coming years, and learn something new from it each time, until it has been absorbed into my brain in all its Southern glory and tragedy and abundant summer. My review may seem like a complaint, but Peachtree Road is as vivid, alive and deliciously exhausting as Lucy Bondurant herself. Show Less
LibraryThing member mitzlarue
Love this book. One of the best books written about this time period.
LibraryThing member carterchristian1
I live on Peachtree St. "up the road" from Peachtree Road. Like others like me who grew up in Atlanta in the 50s I was interested in seeing how true this author was. I think he captured the mood of the time.
LibraryThing member pictou
The quintescential Southern Gothic story. Well written meandering story, the best of Ann Rivers Siddon before she started churning out books over and over. Her best
LibraryThing member jdcage
Horrible "love story" about impotence and self-hatred.
LibraryThing member alisonb60
Phew! I have just finished this amazing story so wonderfully written. I feel I know all the people so well and have lived it with them. It is so cleverly done leaving us with a couple of questions and I especially want to know, is - who is Malory's father? What happened next?
LibraryThing member edwina1
Excellent - highly recommend
LibraryThing member Equestrienne
I first read this book when it was released in 1989. I have re-read it many times over the years, and just finished reading it again. Those first two hundred pages are just so redolent of a lost era; one that happened before I was born, but I heard about from my parents who grew up in the same
So it isn't really like Gone With the Wind at all, except in the broadest sense that the world the main characters loved so well has disappeared. Yes, most of the action does take place in Atlanta, but you can't compare A Tree Grows In Brooklyn with Bonfire of the Vanities simply because the action takes place in the 5 boroughs of NYC.
Lucy Bondurant has nothing in common with Scarlett O'Hara.....in fact, she is the polar opposite of Scarlett. Lucy can't save her own self, let alone be responsible for anyone else. Scarlett was strong, manipulative and a realist. Lucy, too is manipulative, but she manipulates from the position of weakness, neediness and extreme idealism.
Few of the characters are noble; they are all flawed in some way; the reader doesn't have to like or admire any of them, it is interesting enough just to observe them.
After reading many reviews, it seems as though many readers didn't understand the ending. The bridge in question is the same bridge that Shep and Lucy's group of friends all jumped off from during their swimming excursions of the Chattahoochee River. In high school, Shep was too afraid of heights to jump from the bridge, and he was mocked for his inability. When Shep stands on the railing of the bridge and Sarah calls out to him; he is not attempting suicide, and she is not encouraging him. With Lucy dead he is finally free; his burden has been lifted and he is no longer responsible for his crazy, wonderful, troubled cousin. I kind of think that he and Sarah finally got together after the last scene of this book.
Oh, and for the people who complained that the book starts out with Lucy's funeral, creating a spoiler......bullshit! At the beginning of the book, the reader has no idea who Lucy is; you know nothing about her, so the fact that she is being buried is immaterial. You have to read the book, find out who Lucy was, and what her life was like. You need to know the details of her relationship with her cousin Shep. Something tells me that these people who complained about "knowing how it ended" are probably the same people who loved the movie Titanic......even though they knew it sank with hundreds of people on board.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is seeking a great romance, because it isn't a romance novel at all. More tragic than anything else, as many of Siddons novels seem to be. I would recommend it to any open-minded person who enjoys a good, epic, slice of life novel.
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time, just considerably further north. Siddons telling of Shep Bondurant's childhood is so nostalgic and evocative; I just love the first 200 pages of this book.So it isn't really like Gone With the Wind at all, except in the broadest sense that the world the main characters loved so well has disappeared. Yes, most of the action does take place in Atlanta, but you can't compare A Tree Grows In Brooklyn with Bonfire of the Vanities simply because the action takes place in the 5 boroughs of NYC.
Lucy Bondurant has nothing in common with Scarlett O'Hara.....in fact, she is the polar opposite of Scarlett. Lucy can't save her own self, let alone be responsible for anyone else. Scarlett was strong, manipulative and a realist. Lucy, too is manipulative, but she manipulates from the position of weakness, neediness and extreme idealism.
Few of the characters are noble; they are all flawed in some way; the reader doesn't have to like or admire any of them, it is interesting enough just to observe them.
After reading many reviews, it seems as though many readers didn't understand the ending. The bridge in question is the same bridge that Shep and Lucy's group of friends all jumped off from during their swimming excursions of the Chattahoochee River. In high school, Shep was too afraid of heights to jump from the bridge, and he was mocked for his inability. When Shep stands on the railing of the bridge and Sarah calls out to him; he is not attempting suicide, and she is not encouraging him. With Lucy dead he is finally free; his burden has been lifted and he is no longer responsible for his crazy, wonderful, troubled cousin. I kind of think that he and Sarah finally got together after the last scene of this book.
Oh, and for the people who complained that the book starts out with Lucy's funeral, creating a spoiler......bullshit! At the beginning of the book, the reader has no idea who Lucy is; you know nothing about her, so the fact that she is being buried is immaterial. You have to read the book, find out who Lucy was, and what her life was like. You need to know the details of her relationship with her cousin Shep. Something tells me that these people who complained about "knowing how it ended" are probably the same people who loved the movie Titanic......even though they knew it sank with hundreds of people on board.
I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is seeking a great romance, because it isn't a romance novel at all. More tragic than anything else, as many of Siddons novels seem to be. I would recommend it to any open-minded person who enjoys a good, epic, slice of life novel.
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Awards
Georgia Top 25 Reading List (2002)
Original publication date
1991-05
ISBN
5552483316 / 9785552483310