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Peachtree Road
Two star-crossed cousins, the independent Lucy and the bookish Shep, play out a love-hate relationship over several decades among the elite levels of Southern society
969 pages, Hardcover
First published November 13, 1989
About the author
Anne Rivers Siddons
47 books1,164 followersBorn Sybil Anne Rivers in Atlanta, Georgia, she was raised in Fairburn, Georgia, and attended Auburn University, where she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta Sorority.
While at Auburn she wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, that favored integration. The university administration attempted to suppress the column, and ultimately fired her, and the column garnered national attention. She later became a senior editor for Atlanta magazine.
At the age of thirty she married Heyward Siddons, and she and her husband lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and spent summers in Maine. Siddons died of lung cancer on September 11, 2019
While at Auburn she wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman, that favored integration. The university administration attempted to suppress the column, and ultimately fired her, and the column garnered national attention. She later became a senior editor for Atlanta magazine.
At the age of thirty she married Heyward Siddons, and she and her husband lived in Charleston, South Carolina, and spent summers in Maine. Siddons died of lung cancer on September 11, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 275 reviews
September 11, 2014
Oh my gosh y'all, I am so sorry to everyone who has ever tried to get me to read this author, but I can't, I just can't. This is my second attempt, I tried to read Low Country about 10 years ago and it just did me in with the verbal diarrhea. Still, people whose literary opinions I like and tend to agree kept telling me how great she is and how I should really read her novels. So I made a valiant effort, but oh my Lord have mercy, why use one word when 2000 will do? The first 150 pages could have probably been condensed down to 15. I am not above liking some florid descriptions of cities and homes and people, but good gravy, there's a time when you have to stop beating the reader over the head with your $.50 adjectives and get on with the story. I soldiered on to my self imposed halfway mark. I surrender. Anne Rivers Siddons and I are just never going to get along.
July 11, 2010
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 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.
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.
May 21, 2023
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 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.
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.
July 27, 2015
For anyone who lives or has ever lived in Atlanta, this book is fascinating for its historical references alone. It describes what people tend to refer to as the "old money" in Atlanta, although Shep, the main character, is quick to note that no money in Atlanta is truly "old".
When evaluating a book I like to think about what my biggest take away is... what did I learn? This book made me, a fiscal conservative and lifelong Republican, realize that estate taxes are absolutely necessary to ensure the long-term stability of society. I kept thinking to myself that Shep would have taken a different turn in life, pulled himself out of his decades-long funk, if only he had needed to get a job! To be awash in trust-fund money allowed him to live in an other-worldly state, ensconced in his summerhouse, never doing much of anything except making coffee and writing another family's history.
That being said, Siddons is masterful at creating characters that are truly differentiated and not one-dimensional. The only character I did find to be bit flat and hard to believe was Sarah, but even the character Lucy commented on that aspect of Sarah's "facade". Siddons also makes the generation of my parents come alive -- she has way of making you feel like you are right there. (Suddenly, things my mother has told me about growing up in Charleston, SC in the 1950s feel more relevant when I find myself transported to that time and place.) She also does a great job at showing how Buckhead was transformed from a bucolic paradise to a hustling skyscraper city over the last 50 years.
Admittedly, the first 75 pages of this book sound a bit like listening to an old lady prattle on about the times back in her day... I was bored. But then the book started to pick up speed and the pace during the second half got faster and faster with more and more OMG moments until I began to think "What more calamities can one woman pack in one book?" And then she did it.
Wow. Read the book. You'll see. This is a great summer read.
When evaluating a book I like to think about what my biggest take away is... what did I learn? This book made me, a fiscal conservative and lifelong Republican, realize that estate taxes are absolutely necessary to ensure the long-term stability of society. I kept thinking to myself that Shep would have taken a different turn in life, pulled himself out of his decades-long funk, if only he had needed to get a job! To be awash in trust-fund money allowed him to live in an other-worldly state, ensconced in his summerhouse, never doing much of anything except making coffee and writing another family's history.
That being said, Siddons is masterful at creating characters that are truly differentiated and not one-dimensional. The only character I did find to be bit flat and hard to believe was Sarah, but even the character Lucy commented on that aspect of Sarah's "facade". Siddons also makes the generation of my parents come alive -- she has way of making you feel like you are right there. (Suddenly, things my mother has told me about growing up in Charleston, SC in the 1950s feel more relevant when I find myself transported to that time and place.) She also does a great job at showing how Buckhead was transformed from a bucolic paradise to a hustling skyscraper city over the last 50 years.
Admittedly, the first 75 pages of this book sound a bit like listening to an old lady prattle on about the times back in her day... I was bored. But then the book started to pick up speed and the pace during the second half got faster and faster with more and more OMG moments until I began to think "What more calamities can one woman pack in one book?" And then she did it.
Wow. Read the book. You'll see. This is a great summer read.
January 17, 2020
This wasn't terrible, it was just terribly long-winded. It was my first Anne Rivers Siddons book, and I think she's quite a good writer, but I just didn't connect to this novel. The flourishing, over-written style she employed here didn't help; while it was easy to breeze through pages of writing in one sitting, because the writing flowed very well, it was difficult to want to pick up the book again. 350 pages in, I neither like the characters, nor the direction in which the story is going, nor the melodramatic Georgian soap opera it's becoming, and I'm calling it quits.
October 29, 2008
The first time I picked up this book, I put it down after about 20 pages because I just couldn't get into it. Some months later, I picked it up again, started reading it and was so sucked into the story that I was sad to see the book end. I absolutely loved this book.
June 18, 2015
There's no other way to say it,"Peachtree Road" is the written word at its finest; 797 pages of evocative, soul-stirring wonder written in a first person voice that laughs in the face of lesser writers adhering to the widely, overemphasized and uninspired writing rule of "show, don't tell." This book tells, and it does so fearlessly in a voice that could only come from a blue-blooded insider coming of age in 1960's Atlanta. Without judgment or condescension, and more in the vein of an objective matter of course, the reader is gifted with the voice of Shep Bondurant as he lays the backdrop of his riveting life shaping story, a story so scathingly unusual as to psychologically scar, yet somehow the reader understands the crumbs offered along the way of this cause and effect, sins of the father story.
In the opulence of aristocratic, pre-civil rights Atlanta, when the city was but a Southern town divided by race and class, partitioned into those who live in mansions and those who serve within, Shep Bondurant is an only child rattling around his family mansion on Peachtree Road. An unexpected knock on the front door sets the course of his life in motion, when his parents unwittingly take in a poor relation and her two small children on sufferance. Thus the stage is set when Shep, a sensitive, lonely boy, has his cloistered life blown open up by the entrance of his cousin, Lucy Bondurant, who is damaged and captivatingly feral as an alley cat. The two form an immediate bond that deepens as the pair mature, but it is its repercussions that play throughout this episodic story, wreaking havoc beneath the surface of a setting where all that glitters is not gold. "Peachtree Road" unapologetically captures a way of life in an era long gone by. It is populated by emblematic, supportive characters, and weaves and dodges as it finds its footing in an arc spanning fifty years in the turbulent, most pivotal times of the American South. It is a human drama uninfluenced by privilege, the kind that reminds us all that there is no escaping life's disillusioning, difining sorrows, nor their lasting effects. Authentically and accurately told, "Peachtree Road" reaches into the bone marrow and leaves its handprint; it is an epic Southern saga for the ages and one not to be missed.
In the opulence of aristocratic, pre-civil rights Atlanta, when the city was but a Southern town divided by race and class, partitioned into those who live in mansions and those who serve within, Shep Bondurant is an only child rattling around his family mansion on Peachtree Road. An unexpected knock on the front door sets the course of his life in motion, when his parents unwittingly take in a poor relation and her two small children on sufferance. Thus the stage is set when Shep, a sensitive, lonely boy, has his cloistered life blown open up by the entrance of his cousin, Lucy Bondurant, who is damaged and captivatingly feral as an alley cat. The two form an immediate bond that deepens as the pair mature, but it is its repercussions that play throughout this episodic story, wreaking havoc beneath the surface of a setting where all that glitters is not gold. "Peachtree Road" unapologetically captures a way of life in an era long gone by. It is populated by emblematic, supportive characters, and weaves and dodges as it finds its footing in an arc spanning fifty years in the turbulent, most pivotal times of the American South. It is a human drama uninfluenced by privilege, the kind that reminds us all that there is no escaping life's disillusioning, difining sorrows, nor their lasting effects. Authentically and accurately told, "Peachtree Road" reaches into the bone marrow and leaves its handprint; it is an epic Southern saga for the ages and one not to be missed.
January 16, 2009
A must-read for Atlantans. I read it after I had moved here and it got me interested in Atlanta's rich and colorful history. Everytime I drive Peachtree Road in Buckhead I glance over at the last mansion and think about this great book.
July 15, 2008
Best first line I've ever read--"The south started killing Lucy Bondurant the day she was born. It does that to all it's women>"
August 26, 2011
Writing this long after reading the book. I mainly recall it being too wordy. The plot was interesting, but it was a challenge to get through this book and quite depressing at times.
March 4, 2015
There's lots to dislike about this book. Main characters Shep (male cousin, narrator) and Lucy (repeatedly stated to be 2 years younger than Shep, moves in with Shep's wealthy family when her shiftless dad runs away)are selfish, incestuous, callous, co-dependent snobs. Lucy in particular is a delinquent.
Because Shep wuvs her so, he repeatedly defends Lucy's decisions. He describes Lucy as NEVER deliberately cruel, on a day when pre-teen Lucy sneers that their friend with a leg brace* (from childhood polio) can't keep up on a bicycle ride. Because she taunts the crippled boy, he and everyone else follow her, determined to prove they are just as capable as Lcy.
What are they capable of? Vandalizing an old mansion that they think is abandoned. They're not actually sure whether the reclusive old widow who left there has left town or not, but they chuck rocks at her house, break into it, and do thousands of dollars worth of property damage some time in the 1940's.
I say "some time" because the author seldom uses actual dates, just says that X character is "___" years old when an event happens. But her math is terrible.
The flashback/memoir starts with Shep remembering how he met Lucy and her younger siblings when they moved into his home at Peachtree Road. Shep was 7, Lucy was 5. No year given.
When Lucy has lived with the family for a couple months or about a year, they hear on the radio that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. Alrighty then. Author doesn't list the date, but most people either learned in school or via Google that Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7th, 1941.
So we can infer that Shep was likely born in 1934, and Lucy was born in 1936. Theoretically Shep could have been born in late December of 33, but the weather is/was mild on his birthday, so I doubt he was a winter baby.
(Not surprisingly, looking up the author's birthdate reveals that Anne Rivers Siddons was born in 1936. Could "Lucy" be a thinly disguised Author Avatar? I hope not cause Lucy is a violent, hateful human being. I'll talk a bit on why Lucy's terrible in the SPOILERS section.)
back to the math fail
Shep receives a car for his 16th birthday. A Plymouth Fury with a red and white two-one paint job. The car is too flashy and Shep soon tires of driving it, gets a different vehicle later. Obviously a Stephen King/Christine shout-out. Problem is Furys were only made from 1956-1978. Gran Fury came later but that's also discontinued now. The Belvedere Fury was only made from 56-58 and you'd have to customize it to get the 'Christine' color scheme. Otherwise that model (2 door, hardtop coupe) would be beige and gold.
To be 16 and get a Plymouth Belvedere Fury, the EARLIEST a person could be born is 1940.
If Shep was born in 40, Lucy would be born in 42, and therefore Lucy could never have heard the original broadcast about Pearl Harbor, the kids wouldn't even meet until some time in 1947, when WWII was already officially over.
My guess is the author just wanted a cool, iconic 50's car for Shep to use in high school, and never bothered to think that the cars available at the start of the decade (Jan, 1950) would not necessarily be the same as those available by the the decade's end (Dec, 1959).
The whole timeline is confusing and full of historical and pop cultural inaccuracies. The boys in Shep's school wear pompadour hairstyles (which was more of a late 50's/early 60's fad) but the male narrator can't remember why his gang was called the Jells. His best guess? The Jells were colorful and vibrant, like jelly beans.
Ffft, no. It was the hair gel stupid, that's why they also called it jelly rolls. I wasn't born until long after the 50's but I've watched Grease and I've read fashion encyclopedias. It ain't that hard to look these details up. Furthermore, Shep recalls seeing Frank Sinatra in Pal Joey during his HS years. That's 1957.
Anyone who was in HS during 57 but ALSO recalls listening to the original Pearl Harbor news broadcast between 7-8 years of age must have failed several grades. 23 Skidoo shout not be your age or your graduation cry.
SPOILERS
As for the main girl/love interest in the book, Lucy is terrifying and dangerously aggro. Srsly, this girl punches her baby brother and kid sister for trying to sit in a shady spot on the lawn, because she'd named the shady patch "Dumboozle Town, Florida" and wanted it to be just for her and Shep alone.
Lucy punches the toddler Jamie, a boy not even 24 months old, and middle sibling Adelaide aka "Little Lady" was between 4-5 years old. Little Lady survives with some cuts and bruises. Jamie hits his head after being pummeled by Lucy's fists, is unable to cry out or speak properly after that, family minus Lucy and Shep takes Jamie to the hospital, he dies.
Shep's Mom aka Lucy's Aunt grounds them but tells the kids not to blame themselves as Jamie died of infantile paralysis/polio although the symptoms described in the book makes it sound more like complications from his head injury was the actual cause of death. Considering the family issues a "quarantine" that is broken less than a week later, polio as COD seems unlikely.
Lucy is able to manipulate Jamie's death to suit her own purposes. She breaks curfew, steals from her Mom's purse ~while the mother that Lucy hates so much was volunteering at a Red Cross canteen, still reeling from the death/burial of Jamie but wanting to do her part for the war effort. Yeah, this is the kind of skewed sympathies book where the honest, hard-working Mom is labeled SO MEAN and the disobedient, petulant daughter is punished for no reason, waaah!~
Lucy then kidnaps Little Lady, shoves her in a too small stroller, calls a taxi, and goes to the Greyhound Station, where she purchases 2 tickets to Louisiana, a state she lived in once.
When the police track her down, Lucy lies that she was only trying to send her sister somewhere safe from polio, didn't mean to be bad, boo-hoo. The Rich Uncle swallows the lie and forgives her, the grounding or "quarantine" ends. Lucy then confesses to Shep that she only wanted to send Adelaide away because she's a dumb crybaby and that if both Jamie and Adelaide were gone her father would come back.
I'd have more sympathy for Lucy's abandonment issues/daddy complex if she wasn't also a lying, manipulative, bossy, brat, who shows zero remorse about punching people and sheds NO tears when her baby sibling died. I ain't even touching the incestuous romance that Shep and Lucy develop. 50 Shades of DO NOT WANT. Go back to Flowers In The Attic, y'all.
Because Shep wuvs her so, he repeatedly defends Lucy's decisions. He describes Lucy as NEVER deliberately cruel, on a day when pre-teen Lucy sneers that their friend with a leg brace* (from childhood polio) can't keep up on a bicycle ride. Because she taunts the crippled boy, he and everyone else follow her, determined to prove they are just as capable as Lcy.
What are they capable of? Vandalizing an old mansion that they think is abandoned. They're not actually sure whether the reclusive old widow who left there has left town or not, but they chuck rocks at her house, break into it, and do thousands of dollars worth of property damage some time in the 1940's.
I say "some time" because the author seldom uses actual dates, just says that X character is "___" years old when an event happens. But her math is terrible.
The flashback/memoir starts with Shep remembering how he met Lucy and her younger siblings when they moved into his home at Peachtree Road. Shep was 7, Lucy was 5. No year given.
When Lucy has lived with the family for a couple months or about a year, they hear on the radio that the Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. Alrighty then. Author doesn't list the date, but most people either learned in school or via Google that Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7th, 1941.
So we can infer that Shep was likely born in 1934, and Lucy was born in 1936. Theoretically Shep could have been born in late December of 33, but the weather is/was mild on his birthday, so I doubt he was a winter baby.
(Not surprisingly, looking up the author's birthdate reveals that Anne Rivers Siddons was born in 1936. Could "Lucy" be a thinly disguised Author Avatar? I hope not cause Lucy is a violent, hateful human being. I'll talk a bit on why Lucy's terrible in the SPOILERS section.)
back to the math fail
Shep receives a car for his 16th birthday. A Plymouth Fury with a red and white two-one paint job. The car is too flashy and Shep soon tires of driving it, gets a different vehicle later. Obviously a Stephen King/Christine shout-out. Problem is Furys were only made from 1956-1978. Gran Fury came later but that's also discontinued now. The Belvedere Fury was only made from 56-58 and you'd have to customize it to get the 'Christine' color scheme. Otherwise that model (2 door, hardtop coupe) would be beige and gold.
To be 16 and get a Plymouth Belvedere Fury, the EARLIEST a person could be born is 1940.
If Shep was born in 40, Lucy would be born in 42, and therefore Lucy could never have heard the original broadcast about Pearl Harbor, the kids wouldn't even meet until some time in 1947, when WWII was already officially over.
My guess is the author just wanted a cool, iconic 50's car for Shep to use in high school, and never bothered to think that the cars available at the start of the decade (Jan, 1950) would not necessarily be the same as those available by the the decade's end (Dec, 1959).
The whole timeline is confusing and full of historical and pop cultural inaccuracies. The boys in Shep's school wear pompadour hairstyles (which was more of a late 50's/early 60's fad) but the male narrator can't remember why his gang was called the Jells. His best guess? The Jells were colorful and vibrant, like jelly beans.
Ffft, no. It was the hair gel stupid, that's why they also called it jelly rolls. I wasn't born until long after the 50's but I've watched Grease and I've read fashion encyclopedias. It ain't that hard to look these details up. Furthermore, Shep recalls seeing Frank Sinatra in Pal Joey during his HS years. That's 1957.
Anyone who was in HS during 57 but ALSO recalls listening to the original Pearl Harbor news broadcast between 7-8 years of age must have failed several grades. 23 Skidoo shout not be your age or your graduation cry.
SPOILERS
As for the main girl/love interest in the book, Lucy is terrifying and dangerously aggro. Srsly, this girl punches her baby brother and kid sister for trying to sit in a shady spot on the lawn, because she'd named the shady patch "Dumboozle Town, Florida" and wanted it to be just for her and Shep alone.
Lucy punches the toddler Jamie, a boy not even 24 months old, and middle sibling Adelaide aka "Little Lady" was between 4-5 years old. Little Lady survives with some cuts and bruises. Jamie hits his head after being pummeled by Lucy's fists, is unable to cry out or speak properly after that, family minus Lucy and Shep takes Jamie to the hospital, he dies.
Shep's Mom aka Lucy's Aunt grounds them but tells the kids not to blame themselves as Jamie died of infantile paralysis/polio although the symptoms described in the book makes it sound more like complications from his head injury was the actual cause of death. Considering the family issues a "quarantine" that is broken less than a week later, polio as COD seems unlikely.
Lucy is able to manipulate Jamie's death to suit her own purposes. She breaks curfew, steals from her Mom's purse ~while the mother that Lucy hates so much was volunteering at a Red Cross canteen, still reeling from the death/burial of Jamie but wanting to do her part for the war effort. Yeah, this is the kind of skewed sympathies book where the honest, hard-working Mom is labeled SO MEAN and the disobedient, petulant daughter is punished for no reason, waaah!~
Lucy then kidnaps Little Lady, shoves her in a too small stroller, calls a taxi, and goes to the Greyhound Station, where she purchases 2 tickets to Louisiana, a state she lived in once.
When the police track her down, Lucy lies that she was only trying to send her sister somewhere safe from polio, didn't mean to be bad, boo-hoo. The Rich Uncle swallows the lie and forgives her, the grounding or "quarantine" ends. Lucy then confesses to Shep that she only wanted to send Adelaide away because she's a dumb crybaby and that if both Jamie and Adelaide were gone her father would come back.
I'd have more sympathy for Lucy's abandonment issues/daddy complex if she wasn't also a lying, manipulative, bossy, brat, who shows zero remorse about punching people and sheds NO tears when her baby sibling died. I ain't even touching the incestuous romance that Shep and Lucy develop. 50 Shades of DO NOT WANT. Go back to Flowers In The Attic, y'all.
January 27, 2011
This book is largely set in Buckhead, where I used to live (1948-1956) and went to school (North Fulton HS 1948-1950). She defines (p.23) Buckhead as stretching from Peachtree Creek on the south to West Paces Ferry Road on the north, from Northside Drive on the west to Peachtree Road on the east. My sense was that it went further east than just Peachtree Road. She gives it an area of some 4 square miles. She mentions Crawford-Long Hospital, where my first child was born. In 1907 the first trolley line was laid down from downtown Atlanta to Buckhead. Jim Dickey wrote a poem about “The Buckhead Boys.” (p.32), and was supposedly one himself. Buckhead is called Buckhead because in 1838 a man named Hardy Ivy mounted the head of a buck on a tree over his tavern and crossroads store (p.34). E. Rivers School is first mentioned on page 57. Another link to my own childhood is the presence of polio, which kills Lucy’s little baby brother. The author says (p. 120) that in any family group there is a natural scapegoat. The narrator goes to NFHS (p. 142). The terms Pinks and Jells is discussed on p. 147, and the term Cocksman is used on p. 148. The author uses the term, Great American Nooky Quest, at the bottom of p. 157. The Varsity’s Flossie May is mentioned on p. 183 (I have heard him chant/sing the Varsity menu many times). The narrator graduated from Princeton in 1958 (p. 250). On p. 254 is the emotional high point (so far) of the book: Sarah says to Shep as she is boarding the plane from NY (where she had been visiting him) to Atlanta: Don’t come home. If you come home, it will be to her (meaning Lucy). The author misjudges Kennedy vs. Nixon debate on p. 274. At the top of p. 278, she refers to Army Rangers as “murderous peers.” The narrator’s mother is killed on a plane crash with a group of members of the Atlanta Art Association (p.397), who were touring the art galleries and museums of Europe. The plane crashed while taking off from Orly. This is the crash that killed the mother of my HS friend Ralph Barry (who’s picture is on p. G-37 of my book). Tragedies, misfortune, and early deaths strike the friends and relatives of the narrator (Shep Bondurant), seemingly far more than the average person. He tells his best friend and 1st cousin Lucy Bondurant to take the gun she is holding (and with which she shot her husband) and shoot herself – and she does. The ending of the book is written in such an obtuse (to me) manner, that I had trouble interpreting what it meant. Was he committing suicide, merely jumping into the Chattahoochee, or just having a dream or vision? Pat Stacy thinks he was definitely killing himself. I suspect that she is correct, especially considering the negativity and pessimism inherent in the entire book. This is mirrored in Shep’s sadness about the transformation of Atlanta from an idyllic, sleepy Southern town into a commercial big city. Ms. Siddons writes beautifully and with fine imagery in describing the personalities and psychologies of her characters. She makes a huge gaff (I didn’t write down the page #) in referring to the county as “North Fulton County,” unless of course it has been re-districted since I lived there. In giving this a rating, I have trouble separating out the personal interest I have in the specific locale of the book. Without that, I would probably only give it a 5, given the unremittingly joyless sadness inherent in the work. Since the rating is my own personal rating, I will give it an 8.
November 13, 2012
Having come off another Siddons book just previous to this one, I had very high expectations. Peachtree Road satisfied most of them. I loved the main characters of Shep and Lucy from the first, and their glittering world of privilege—Shep’s without lifting a finger, and Lucy’s only through sheer determination. I loved the main supporting characters of Sarah, Charlie, Ben, Jack, Little Lady and even Jack’s forbidding parents and Lucy’s social climbing trash mother. There are at least 50 additional supporting characters of various roles besides these, creating a complex, living story of interrelated lives, and cause and effect, sometimes with terrible results. The story was utterly engrossing, the events compelling on their own—and especially alive with the history on the civil rights movement added seamlessly into them. I spent the entire evening reading, because I had to get to the end to see what happened. And for the longest time I can remember, I was glad that the book was near 600 pages, because I wanted it to go on and on to know how all the characters ended up.
My one real problem was the book is not linear. It begins at the funeral of Lucy, and I found most of the prologue incomprehensible, as it mentions characters by the truckload with no background to go with them. Having read the entire book, I was able to go back and make sense of it all to see the heavy foreshadowing present within it, but in retrospect I should have skipped right to chapter one and not tried to make sense of it until later. There is also a deep morose quality to this book, as there is with all tales of a golden era and its eventual end. While I enjoyed this, I will not reread it.
Overall opinion: Not as good as some of the other Siddons books, but definitely worth reading.
My one real problem was the book is not linear. It begins at the funeral of Lucy, and I found most of the prologue incomprehensible, as it mentions characters by the truckload with no background to go with them. Having read the entire book, I was able to go back and make sense of it all to see the heavy foreshadowing present within it, but in retrospect I should have skipped right to chapter one and not tried to make sense of it until later. There is also a deep morose quality to this book, as there is with all tales of a golden era and its eventual end. While I enjoyed this, I will not reread it.
Overall opinion: Not as good as some of the other Siddons books, but definitely worth reading.
January 29, 2019
I tried to enjoy this book. I really did. I love historical fiction, but the main character/narrator's observations of his cousin Lucy just absolutely grated on me. I got about 1/3 through the story and stopped not long after Lucy taunts/dares her cousin to do something that she KNOWS he is deadly terrified of (heights) and that just really illustrated what kind of a cunt Lucy was.
I get that Lucy did not have an easy childhood between her dad and mom, but it seems that regardless of her environment she would still have been an narcissist. I was sick of Shep's devotion to her and his willingness to forgive her pretty much anything, and the way he went on about her magnificence/darkness (reminded me of Twilight and how Edward was obsessively described) After about 200 pages of this (out of nearly 600) I decided enough was enough and I was not going to waste any more time.
I get that Lucy did not have an easy childhood between her dad and mom, but it seems that regardless of her environment she would still have been an narcissist. I was sick of Shep's devotion to her and his willingness to forgive her pretty much anything, and the way he went on about her magnificence/darkness (reminded me of Twilight and how Edward was obsessively described) After about 200 pages of this (out of nearly 600) I decided enough was enough and I was not going to waste any more time.
July 21, 2008
Growing up in Atlanta off of Peachtree Road, a daughter of the book's generation of Southerners, I found this book compelling reading. Again and again it triggered stories about my grandfather. Although he came from the wrong side of the tracks and far too poor to be one of the "Buckhead boys" of the book, he pulled himself up by "his own bootstraps" to join the ranks of the powerful city aristocracy, especially in the political arena. The book helped me understand my own heritage in new ways, especially the cultural dimensions of Atlanta white women.
April 19, 2008
This is one I plan to read again. It's another of those grand southerns stories in the tradition of Pat Conroy or even Margaret Mitchell. The backdrop is beautiful and the story interesting (and just scandalous enough to be fun...but not to much!) It definitely reinforces the stereotype that those genteel southerners have a lot of skeletons in the closet.
My favorite of her books.
My favorite of her books.
June 24, 2009
one of my alltime favorite books; written from the point of view of a man (unusual for this author), Shep, growing up in Buckhead in the 50's and 60's - follows his life and the life of his cousin, Lucy - really interesting since I live in Atlanta - one of my favorite authors and this is my favorite books of hers
April 17, 2007
This was her best novel, in my opinion. Richly drawn characters, and a setting that not only impacts, but drives the plot. It makes me want to visit Atlanta and see the homes, but I have a feeling they've probably all been razed to build office buildings by now!
November 30, 2008
I have been a big fan of Siddons for many years. Peachtree Road is the first book of hers that I read, and I absolutely loved it. Maybe it's because most of her stories center around the Atlanta area and I love Atlanta. Who knows? Peachtree Road is a GREAT read!
May 18, 2020
Loved the characters in this book. At times Siddon's descriptions of the South got long and even repetitive, but once able to get past that there was a lot of substance. (And ANOTHER death of a parent due to a plane crash- EEEEEKKK
January 9, 2008
I couldn't stop reading this book. I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning to finish it. It's great! Heart-wrenching but great!
May 18, 2017
Some books are just banquets. This is one of them.
November 9, 2021
3.5/5
What an exhausting overwhelming book !
Rating this book is quite difficult . The book is about Lucy and her cousin Shep ( who is by the way the narrator) and their life in the south . I like the historical premise , the events that happened their impact on the characters .
It started a bit slow , and there is a lot of description , over written style which makes the book hard to read especially in the beginning . Hopefully , in the second part it peaked up the pace .
The characters are quite complicated . They're not the usual one dimension character , which makes you more attached to the story and more emotionally involved .
Lucy , is a provoking character . She is stubborn , spoiled and irresponsible which makes her irritating and you can't sympathize with her . Shep is so naive and stupid . Well , the two main characters are irritating , and this makes it harder to be read as a book but at the same time makes the beauty of the book with all these overflowing emotions .
Overall , it is a good book but I don't recommend it to everyone .
What an exhausting overwhelming book !
Rating this book is quite difficult . The book is about Lucy and her cousin Shep ( who is by the way the narrator) and their life in the south . I like the historical premise , the events that happened their impact on the characters .
It started a bit slow , and there is a lot of description , over written style which makes the book hard to read especially in the beginning . Hopefully , in the second part it peaked up the pace .
The characters are quite complicated . They're not the usual one dimension character , which makes you more attached to the story and more emotionally involved .
Lucy , is a provoking character . She is stubborn , spoiled and irresponsible which makes her irritating and you can't sympathize with her . Shep is so naive and stupid . Well , the two main characters are irritating , and this makes it harder to be read as a book but at the same time makes the beauty of the book with all these overflowing emotions .
Overall , it is a good book but I don't recommend it to everyone .
Want to read
December 1, 2020Popsugar 2021 - longest book on TBR
June 23, 2018
Very interesting book about several generations of Atlanta Aristocracy and populated with some Dickensian characters. Many an unexpected plot twist abounds!
September 7, 2010
Yes, I have to agree with The Baltimore Sun's report that Peachtree Road was a love story, a historical novel, a mystery, and a tragedy all wrapped into one. The love/hate relationship which existed between the two main characters, Shep and Lucy, can be compared to a plot found in a Shakespearean tragedy, because in the end they not only destroy themselves but almost everyone else who knew them. However, I do not agree that the book could be seen as another Gone With the Wind!
The love/hate relationship between these main characters begins when the book opens as spunky, little Lucy makes her grand entrance into the Bondurant household. " Something stinks, she says." These two little words turn seven year old Shep's innocent, pampered world upside down. Within seconds after that five year old Lucy reveals to him that his family is rich, where babies come from, and that he is too old not to have a room of his own!
He had never experienced such God awful honesty in his life before. This cousin of his was fearles, bright, independent, and willful. She was everything that he was not! It's no wonder that he was instantaneously caught under her spell. Yes, Shep was caught under that old Black Magic called, Love. Hearing her say words like Titty, Shitty, and the F--- word were second nature to her. This is how she enticed, denigrated, and controlled not only her audience, but him.
Shep said that Lucy had a dark side. He knew it, and yet he could not, for the most part, keep from being drawn into her danger zone.
Throughout the book, she takes him and others on a series of dangerous escapades that ultimately made me hate her. "What?" I asked myself would I have done if I had a child like her?" Shoot myself? Tear my hair out? Tear her hair out? Send her off to a nunnery? You, the reader, can try to solve the problem of this kid gone wrong in your own way!
When all is said and done, Ms. Siddons waits until the very end of the book to reveal the underlying cause of Lucy's outrageous behavior.
Ah! And therein lies the mystery. A mystery that can only be solved by reading this 816 page book.
This book afforded me insight into the tenor of the times, the lifestyle of the rich of Atlanta, a better understanding of what kids do and think as they try to figure out their own lives, and the lives of their friends, acquaintances, and parents. Looking back on it all, it's a wonder that any of us survive. As a matter of fact, some of us don't!
The love/hate relationship between these main characters begins when the book opens as spunky, little Lucy makes her grand entrance into the Bondurant household. " Something stinks, she says." These two little words turn seven year old Shep's innocent, pampered world upside down. Within seconds after that five year old Lucy reveals to him that his family is rich, where babies come from, and that he is too old not to have a room of his own!
He had never experienced such God awful honesty in his life before. This cousin of his was fearles, bright, independent, and willful. She was everything that he was not! It's no wonder that he was instantaneously caught under her spell. Yes, Shep was caught under that old Black Magic called, Love. Hearing her say words like Titty, Shitty, and the F--- word were second nature to her. This is how she enticed, denigrated, and controlled not only her audience, but him.
Shep said that Lucy had a dark side. He knew it, and yet he could not, for the most part, keep from being drawn into her danger zone.
Throughout the book, she takes him and others on a series of dangerous escapades that ultimately made me hate her. "What?" I asked myself would I have done if I had a child like her?" Shoot myself? Tear my hair out? Tear her hair out? Send her off to a nunnery? You, the reader, can try to solve the problem of this kid gone wrong in your own way!
When all is said and done, Ms. Siddons waits until the very end of the book to reveal the underlying cause of Lucy's outrageous behavior.
Ah! And therein lies the mystery. A mystery that can only be solved by reading this 816 page book.
This book afforded me insight into the tenor of the times, the lifestyle of the rich of Atlanta, a better understanding of what kids do and think as they try to figure out their own lives, and the lives of their friends, acquaintances, and parents. Looking back on it all, it's a wonder that any of us survive. As a matter of fact, some of us don't!
May 25, 2018
Just finished reading this book and am amazed I managed to make it to the end... although the book generally sucked me in with descriptions of the South and Atlanta over the course of a few decades, the plot itself became increasingly frustrating. The story is told from the point of view of Shep Bondurant, and is mainly about his cousin Lucy and all the messed-up antics she gets into over the years. While we’re from the beginning supposed to believe that there is something special and magical about Lucy that supposedly justifies all the horrible things she does to people, this never really became clear for me. Yes, her childhood was filled with neglect, and Lucy was “different” from the other girls, but I just reached a point where I stopped caring and basically just wanted Shep to ditch her once and for all. He continually takes care of her even though she just does not deserve it, and completely destroyed his relationship with Sarah, and basically turned him into a recluse (which also had to with other circumstances). The end of the book is just a description of Lucy once again destroying her life and the lives of the people around her.. and Shep ends up having no life of his own. This really frustrated me, as I was hoping that things would turn around for him and he wouldn’t just sit around organizing old journals and taking care of Lucy and eventually her daughter (who somehow turned out normal). I wasn’t even sad when Lucy died, just relieved. I understand she was meant to be the focus of the book, but at one point it just really dragged out and I just wanted it to end. I still enjoyed the world that Siddons created and several of the characters, but I was just frustrated with the overall plot.. others have seemed to enjoy it, so it’s really just a matter of opinion.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 25, 2024
PEACHTREE ROAD dazzles me. It’s the perfect book in my eyes—long and rambling, and beautiful and complicated, with a story that sucks you in from the very beginning, overwhelms you with tragedy and leaves you somewhat spent and wondering. Anne Rivers Siddons was a wonderful writer—in her early years—and Peachtree Road ranks as the masterpiece of her career. The story takes you on a wonderful journey through the rising of Atlanta and the heartbreak that occurred along the way. And make no mistake: There’s a lot of heartbreak here and sadness and despair—amid all the privilege. This is the rare story that I love when there is virtually no character for whom I can care or feel empathy. The narrator, one Shep Bondurant, either describes himself or is described at one point as feckless, that is perhaps the most apt description in the book. I want to feel sorry for old Shep, and maybe I did at times, but, dude, grow a pair! And then there’s Lucy, his unstable, unlovable cousin. She is both of those things, and it’s hard to feel sorry for her. Make no mistake: These are people of privilege. They are Southerners for sure, but theirs is a story of aristocracy. The common Southerner suffers mightily as well, but they either have a little more gumption, ability or, most likely, need to persevere through the tough times. Nevertheless, this story captivates, despite some unappealing characters. The story, the writing, the heartache, the despair, the sheer Gothic Southern-ness combine to create magic on the page. Peachtree Road stayed me long after I read it the first time, and even more so after this second reading. When I first read, it jumped into my all-time top 20 list of books. When I compile my new to 20, it will be there still—and probably higher!
March 20, 2024
I usually love books set in the South, and I usually love books about the wealthy inhabitants of the South facing problems integrating themselves into a present that is very different than the past in which they grew up. This problem is faced by all the inhabitants of Anne Rivers Siddons’s sprawling book, Peachtree Road. However, as much as I like books set in the South, I could not read past 20% of Peachtree Road for reasons I’ll outline below.
Although PEACHTREE ROAD is narrated only by the very privileged Sheppard Bondurant III, most of the book revolves around his “white trash” cousin, who is two years his junior, Lucy Bondurant.
After Lucy’s father, who is Shep’s father’s brother, deserts his family, his wife, Willie, later known only as Willa, and her three children, one of them seven-year-old Lucy, show up on the doorstep of Shep’s family’s glamorous home in the old and wealthy Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. While Shep’s father doesn’t seem to mind their presence, his wife, Olivia doesn’t care for them, but she certainly wouldn’t turn them out. That would not “look good.” She even prohibits Willa from getting a job since it would reflect badly on her and her manners. Within a year, Lucy has transformed herself from social outcast to genteel young woman, and Shep, an only child, seems obsessed with her.
I’m sure, from reading other reviews, that Lucy is supposed to be a fiery, rebellious, go-her-own way character, in the manner of Scarlett O’Hara, but whereas Scarlett O’Hara came alive for me immediately in Gone with the Wind, in the 20% of PEACHTREE ROAD that I read, Lucy Bondurant never became more than a cardboard cut-out. Would she have come to life later in the book? I don’t know, and I didn’t care enough to read on to find out, but given the first 20%, I kind of doubt it.
There was one bright spot in the 20% I read: the Cameron family. The Cameron parents and their two children seemed so kind, so loving, so normal, and so far removed from the Bondurants that I adored them. I met them when both families were vacationing at Burnt Mountain, which is, by the way, the title of another of Siddons’s books. Sarah Cameron, the daughter of the Cameron family, is a stark contrast to Lucy Bondurant, and for me, at least in what I read, Sarah is the clear winner. I wanted nothing to do with Lucy.
Shep Bondurant was way too long-winded to narrate anything, let alone an 800-page book. He goes on and on and on, even when he’s not saying anything at all. (It must take a special talent to do that, kind of like changing keys throughout a song, then ending up in the right key again just before the song ends.) How I longed for a scene, for something to happen to bring these people to life. Before deciding to read PEACHTREE ROAD, I’d read DROOD, by Dan Simmons, and it’s a book of almost 800 pages. But things happen in DROOD. Sommons keeps his book moving along, and though it, too, has only one narrator, all of the characters seem to come alive for good or ill. We get a real sense of time and place and person, something I didn’t get in PEACHTREE ROAD.
And then, there are the adjectives. I didn’t stop to count them, but there must have been twenty on each page. I did the math: twenty adjectives on 800 pages means there would be 16,000 adjectives in the book. Now, at times, I can love my adjectives, too, but that’s just too many for me. And the adjectives Siddons used were very baroque, some even arcane. A few, I had to look up in a dictionary. I’ll give you just one paragraph from the first 20% of the book, and this isn’t the worst of them by far. The paragraph below describes a night from one of the Bondurant family’s visits to Burnt Mountain and the feelings of Shep and Lucy as they watch a meteor shower:
On the evening we were there, that first autumn, there was a meteor shower, and Lucy and I bundled up and took blankets and went down to the dock to watch it. We lay on our backs, utterly silent as the very sky above us arced and bloomed, and when it was over we decided to walk around the lake, so as to prolong the magic. We walked quietly, without speaking. The silver spell of the teeming sky was too recent and close for words. I remember that there was a huge white moon, hanging perfectly full and so low that it seemed to rest on the top of Burnt Mountain, and the whole world was black and silver, like a photographic negative. Where the road and lake and meadow lay in the clear, it was as if the world was flooded in a kind of cold, burning radiance, but in the shadows of trees it was as thick and black as ink. Magic. That night it was just magic. It took your breath; you wanted to whisper. Something old as the world and outside it entirely walked that silver road with us. Lucy, skipping a little ahead of me, was bathed in silver; the radiance seemed to flow off her like phosphorescence does off your skin when you’re in a warm night ocean. I knew that something enormous and awesome was going to happen. How could it not?
Several paragraphs like that, sprinkled throughout the book would be fine, even lovely, but 800 pages like that? It’s too flowery. It's too lush. It’s too much lyricism. It’s too much lyricism even for a poem. It wears the reader down; the book sags beneath the words of its creation. And, nothing of any importance happened. Not in the 20% I read, and 20% is long enough for a great set-up. I remember both loving and hating Scarlett O’Hara in the first 5-10% of GONE WITH THE WIND. I remember being awed by how Mitchell had brought her so colorfully to life. Not so with Siddons and Lucy. I wanted to love PEACHTREE ROAD. I tried very hard to love PEACHTREE ROAD. But in the end, I found it overrun with far too many adjectives and far too little movement. It was too much obsessed with itself.
If you think you’d like 800 pages of something like the paragraph I quoted, then by all means, read the book. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. In fact, I’d recommend you avoid it.
Although PEACHTREE ROAD is narrated only by the very privileged Sheppard Bondurant III, most of the book revolves around his “white trash” cousin, who is two years his junior, Lucy Bondurant.
After Lucy’s father, who is Shep’s father’s brother, deserts his family, his wife, Willie, later known only as Willa, and her three children, one of them seven-year-old Lucy, show up on the doorstep of Shep’s family’s glamorous home in the old and wealthy Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta. While Shep’s father doesn’t seem to mind their presence, his wife, Olivia doesn’t care for them, but she certainly wouldn’t turn them out. That would not “look good.” She even prohibits Willa from getting a job since it would reflect badly on her and her manners. Within a year, Lucy has transformed herself from social outcast to genteel young woman, and Shep, an only child, seems obsessed with her.
I’m sure, from reading other reviews, that Lucy is supposed to be a fiery, rebellious, go-her-own way character, in the manner of Scarlett O’Hara, but whereas Scarlett O’Hara came alive for me immediately in Gone with the Wind, in the 20% of PEACHTREE ROAD that I read, Lucy Bondurant never became more than a cardboard cut-out. Would she have come to life later in the book? I don’t know, and I didn’t care enough to read on to find out, but given the first 20%, I kind of doubt it.
There was one bright spot in the 20% I read: the Cameron family. The Cameron parents and their two children seemed so kind, so loving, so normal, and so far removed from the Bondurants that I adored them. I met them when both families were vacationing at Burnt Mountain, which is, by the way, the title of another of Siddons’s books. Sarah Cameron, the daughter of the Cameron family, is a stark contrast to Lucy Bondurant, and for me, at least in what I read, Sarah is the clear winner. I wanted nothing to do with Lucy.
Shep Bondurant was way too long-winded to narrate anything, let alone an 800-page book. He goes on and on and on, even when he’s not saying anything at all. (It must take a special talent to do that, kind of like changing keys throughout a song, then ending up in the right key again just before the song ends.) How I longed for a scene, for something to happen to bring these people to life. Before deciding to read PEACHTREE ROAD, I’d read DROOD, by Dan Simmons, and it’s a book of almost 800 pages. But things happen in DROOD. Sommons keeps his book moving along, and though it, too, has only one narrator, all of the characters seem to come alive for good or ill. We get a real sense of time and place and person, something I didn’t get in PEACHTREE ROAD.
And then, there are the adjectives. I didn’t stop to count them, but there must have been twenty on each page. I did the math: twenty adjectives on 800 pages means there would be 16,000 adjectives in the book. Now, at times, I can love my adjectives, too, but that’s just too many for me. And the adjectives Siddons used were very baroque, some even arcane. A few, I had to look up in a dictionary. I’ll give you just one paragraph from the first 20% of the book, and this isn’t the worst of them by far. The paragraph below describes a night from one of the Bondurant family’s visits to Burnt Mountain and the feelings of Shep and Lucy as they watch a meteor shower:
On the evening we were there, that first autumn, there was a meteor shower, and Lucy and I bundled up and took blankets and went down to the dock to watch it. We lay on our backs, utterly silent as the very sky above us arced and bloomed, and when it was over we decided to walk around the lake, so as to prolong the magic. We walked quietly, without speaking. The silver spell of the teeming sky was too recent and close for words. I remember that there was a huge white moon, hanging perfectly full and so low that it seemed to rest on the top of Burnt Mountain, and the whole world was black and silver, like a photographic negative. Where the road and lake and meadow lay in the clear, it was as if the world was flooded in a kind of cold, burning radiance, but in the shadows of trees it was as thick and black as ink. Magic. That night it was just magic. It took your breath; you wanted to whisper. Something old as the world and outside it entirely walked that silver road with us. Lucy, skipping a little ahead of me, was bathed in silver; the radiance seemed to flow off her like phosphorescence does off your skin when you’re in a warm night ocean. I knew that something enormous and awesome was going to happen. How could it not?
Several paragraphs like that, sprinkled throughout the book would be fine, even lovely, but 800 pages like that? It’s too flowery. It's too lush. It’s too much lyricism. It’s too much lyricism even for a poem. It wears the reader down; the book sags beneath the words of its creation. And, nothing of any importance happened. Not in the 20% I read, and 20% is long enough for a great set-up. I remember both loving and hating Scarlett O’Hara in the first 5-10% of GONE WITH THE WIND. I remember being awed by how Mitchell had brought her so colorfully to life. Not so with Siddons and Lucy. I wanted to love PEACHTREE ROAD. I tried very hard to love PEACHTREE ROAD. But in the end, I found it overrun with far too many adjectives and far too little movement. It was too much obsessed with itself.
If you think you’d like 800 pages of something like the paragraph I quoted, then by all means, read the book. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. In fact, I’d recommend you avoid it.
January 3, 2020
I have never read Anne River Siddons and I’m not sure what possessed me to do so other than in browsing for books this book caught my attention. I had no idea until i started reading that the novel is 800 pages long. I loved the story ...the main character Shep aka Gibby was an amazing man in many ways, Lucy was portrayed perfectly in her flawed personality, the characters of the old Atlanta elite portrayed so exact you feel like you personally know each and every character and connect emotionally with each one. The story evolves over decades ...the surprises and twists caught me as unexpected and only made me love the story more.
My only major complaint is Siddons, while an amazing writer, spends far too many words to set the story in motion. I almost gave up about a third of the way because her narratives were so lengthy and descriptive and seemed not to enhance the story but to show off her ability and talent. The editor for this book should have revised the story by chopping out about 300 pages of rambling narratives. But once Siddons began tightening the story to develop the plot and used dialogue to enhance the characters’ interactions the book became immensely enjoyable! So the 4 star review is an average of 2 stars for the lengthy story development and 5 stars for the rest of the book from about pg 400 to the end.
My only major complaint is Siddons, while an amazing writer, spends far too many words to set the story in motion. I almost gave up about a third of the way because her narratives were so lengthy and descriptive and seemed not to enhance the story but to show off her ability and talent. The editor for this book should have revised the story by chopping out about 300 pages of rambling narratives. But once Siddons began tightening the story to develop the plot and used dialogue to enhance the characters’ interactions the book became immensely enjoyable! So the 4 star review is an average of 2 stars for the lengthy story development and 5 stars for the rest of the book from about pg 400 to the end.
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