SOUTH OF BROAD

Just finished SOUTH OF BROAD by Pat Conroy. I did read through to the end, but it was a struggle. He throws in integration, child/spousal abuse, priest pedophiles, AIDS, orphans, Appalachian hillbillies, Charleston old families, Hurricane Hugo...

You get the idea. It's a long book with not a lot of plot. Which is okay for literary fiction, I guess. But I fear he's turned out like a lot of other good writers who become wordy without a good editor to calm them down. Maybe it's because their books sell so well that the pubs don't care; maybe it's a lack of enough editors to go around. I don't know. But I've noticed this in the works of several other writers including a couple of well-known mystery writers,

So I'm looking for something light to read. I have a historical romance I'm about ready to jump on.

PD James Book

Prowling through the Village Bookstore the other day, I found an old PD James I hadn't read. I am almost through with it.

Though I like her, it seems to me she's gotten wordy over the years. I'm wondering if this happens when writers become big names. I noticed it with others like Elizabeth George and Anne Rivers Siddons. Their first few books were easy reads but gradually, the books got bigger and bigger. Not plotwise. Wordwise.

It's so hard to find a new author I really like, I hate to give up on the ones I do find but sometimes that's the case.

Maybe it's not the authors. Maybe the editors are overwhelmed and can't edit like they used to. Or maybe the author's allowed more leeway once s/he gets a following. Or maybe there's a demand for that kind of writing.