Peachtree Road

by: Anne Rivers Siddons

Published by: Avon Books

Reviewed by Carrie Padgett

Peachtree Road is brilliant. With all that that implies. It glitters. It’s sharp, blinding, radiant, and dazzling. Pointed and poignant. Siddons has constructed a careful chronicling of the evolution of Atlanta into a desegregated and diverse Sunbelt megalopolis, contrasting it with the devolution of the Bondurants, a Southern family. Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to cover them.

Shep Bondurant has loved his beautiful cousin Lucy since childhood. And hated her. Shep’s uncle abandoned his family so Lucy’s mother turns up on the Bondurant front porch with her three children. Lucy is the only child old enough to remember her father and she is devastated by his defection. Unloved by her aspiring society mother and barely tolerated by Shep’s parents, Lucy forges a lifelong bond with her cousin Shep.

Lucy needs him as Shep needs to be needed by her. Lucy’s descent threatens to drag Shep with her, but he manages to build his own life in the shadow of his family and their legacy. Lucy ruins his every chance at happiness, yet he continues to forgive and save her. They dance together all their lives, occasionally pulling away for periods but always coming together again.

Siddons’s prose is beautiful and provocative. Her allusions sparkle and dance on the page. Some readers will find Peachtree Road inflated and a little self-indulgent. Readers who want a story to move will be bored and skim. Others will delight in savoring the descriptions.

Fans will love this reissue of her classic novel, first published in 1988. Shep and Lucy burrow under your skin and take up residence long after the end of the book. Readers will appreciate the mass market paperback. A tome of 797 pages is much easier to carry around than a hardback the same size.

Armchair Interviews says: Peachtree Road is not for everyone, but those who get it, will love it.