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. Having come off another Siddons book just previous to this one, I had very high expectations. Peachtree Road is the meaty and absorbing story of a city turned on to power and of the privileged inhabitants who led it to its current station as a mecca of business, culture, and progress. Because she taunts the crippled boy, he and everyone else follow her, determined to prove they are just as capable as Lcy. 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 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 exce Peachtree Road is a sweeping Southern magnum opus, centering around Old Atlanta and Buckhead. A Plymouth Fury with a red and white two-one paint job.
A mystery that can only be solved by reading this 816 page book. 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?" It follows the lives of Lucy and Shep Bondurant, first cousins with an incredibly close bond. Furthermore, Shep recalls seeing Frank Sinatra in Pal Joey during his HS years. It's pages are filled with unrequited love, deliberate withholding of parental love, intentional emotional abuse, incurable insanity that sucks everyone around that individual into the depths of despair, over and over again. I wasn’t even sad when Lucy died, just relieved. Need-less to say it touches the heart. )back to the math failShep receives a car for his 16th birthday. (Not surprisingly, looking up the author's birthdate reveals that Anne Rivers Siddons was born in 1936. Very interesting book about several generations of Atlanta Aristocracy and populated with some Dickensian characters. Not one of her better efforts. Again and again it triggered stories about my grandfather. The book helped me understand my own heritage in new ways, especially the cultural dimensions of Atlanta white women. This masterfully written story is the most depressing book I've ever read. 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! I have re-read it many times over the years, and just finished reading it again. Maybe it's because most of her stories center around the Atlanta area and I love Atlanta. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who is seeking a great romance, because it isn't a romance novel at all. 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.
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.