Peachtree Road

by Anne Rivers Siddons

Tenth anniversary edition! Set amidst the grandeur of Old Southern aristocracy, here is a novel that chronicles the turbulent changes of a great city--Atlanta--and tells the story of love and hate between a man and a woman. When Lucy comes to live with her cousin, Sheppard, and his family in the great house on Peachtree Road, she is an only child, never expecting that her reclusive young cousin will become her lifelong confidant and the source of her greatest passion and most terrible need.

Genres: Fiction, Southern, Historical Fiction, Chick Lit, Romance, Book Club, Contemporary

832 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 13, 1989

About the author

Born 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

Reviews

[Minty McBunny · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Lorna · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Southern novel for our generation.” —- Pat Conroy

Peachtree Road was first published in 1988 by author Anne Rivers Siddons and was heralded as a modern times Southern Gothic novel, a sweeping chronicle of wealthy Atlanta gentry and privileged destinies covering from World War II through the struggles of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement to the hope and promise of a young John Kennedy and the turbulent sixties and the space race and the Cold War. The novel is narrated by Sheppard Gibbs Bondurant, the reclusive son of an aristocratic Georgia family spanning some forty years on Peachtree Road at the heart of Atlanta’s exclusive Buckhead section. With ingrained patterns of Buckhead’s social fabric, Shep devotes his life to protecting his young and beloved cousin Lucy Boudurant Chastain Venable from a lot of melodrama and family dysfunction throughout the sprawling tale. Ms. Siddons skillfully weaves many disparate threads throughout the book as well as an exacting observation of the social mores of the times.

Peachtree Road has been compared to a young Margaret Mitchell’s sweeping novel at an earlier time with Atlanta as its backdrop. In the Foreward to my book, Anne Rivers Siddons notes that when she wrote the book ten years ago she was aware even within the first few pages that she was “writing a bittersweet song that would cease to exist before the book was published. It has always been the nature of Atlanta to change like a chameleon, to be gone somewhere else entirely before the eye and the heart could hold it.”

“Back there, the woman wrote, in that dreaming cradle slung between Depression and Camelot, there was, in Atlanta, a golden group of boys and girls called the Pinks and the Jells. They were, most of them, the scions of the great merchant families that had built Atlanta back from the ashes of the Civil War, and if the raw young city could be said to have an aristocracy, these were its heirs and heiresses, its best and its brightest—and its natural victims.”

“It was a beautiful, bountiful, exuberant, frivolous, snobbish, and silkily secure kingdom, and it as then, as it is still, a very small and strictly delineated world, perhaps no more than four miles square, in a green northern suburb of Atlanta called Buckhead. And yet out of it came the men, and indirectly the women, who, rather to their own surprise, would change forever the definition of the word ‘South.’”

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[deLille · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Graeme Newell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book years ago when I was living in Atlanta, and at the time it felt like Siddons had set up a typewriter right in the middle of my neighborhood. It was uncanny how much of the book I was able to see in real life, just walking the streets of Atlanta. Reading it back then was like being handed a mirror that reflected both the old money South and the shiny, up-and-coming Atlanta that I was smack in the middle of. So, decades later, I decided to give it another go and see if it still held up. Spoiler: it does.

What really makes this book sing is the characters. They are drawn with such care and dimension that they feel less like fictional creations and more like people you would nod to while stuck in traffic on Peachtree Street. The characters aren’t stereotypes, either. They’re complicated, maddening, charming, and sometimes downright exhausting. In other words, just like real people. I found myself personally connecting with many of them, and that’s always a sign I’m in the hands of a writer who knows what she’s doing.

Now, I’ll admit, one thing I noticed on this re-read is how little actual dialogue there is. This is not a book where you’re going to overhear witty banter back and forth across a supper table. Siddons often opts for long, descriptive passages instead, sometimes meandering into several pages without anyone opening their mouth. At first I thought, “Come on, Anne, let somebody say something already,” but then I realized that it sort of worked.

She wasn’t trying to write a snappy screenplay; she was crafting atmosphere. The lack of dialogue forces you to slow down and soak in the environment, the people, and the weight of Atlanta’s social order. Still, if you’re someone who likes a story where conversations bounce around like a ping pong ball, you might need a little patience here.

But oh, the language. That’s the part that really grabbed me both then and now. Siddons writes like she’s painting with words, and she clearly brought her entire vocabulary to the party. She has this ability to pick the perfect phrase, the perfect adjective, and make it feel inevitable, as though no other word in the English language would do.

I’ll confess I had to look up more than a few words. I thought I knew them, but apparently I only knew their cheaper cousins. Reading her sentences is like watching a master chef put together a dish you thought was just a sandwich, only to discover it’s a five-course meal stacked between two slices of bread.

The story itself unfolds with that slow Southern pacing, which is fitting because it’s really about change: change in Atlanta, change in families, change in the very idea of what it means to belong to a place. Some parts felt like little time capsules, reminders of a city that has been bulldozed and rebuilt so many times it’s hard to find its old face anymore. And then there’s the ending. Delightful, unexpected, and yes, masterfully done. Siddons didn’t just stick the landing; she managed to make it feel earned and surprising at the same time. That’s a rare feat.

Of course, nothing’s perfect. Those long descriptive passages can get heavy, and sometimes you want to nudge the book and say, “OK, let’s keep moving.” But even when the pace lagged, I found myself enjoying the sentences so much that I didn’t mind. It’s a little like sitting on a big Southern porch on a hot afternoon. Nothing’s happening, really, but the world feels rich and alive around you.

So, does Peachtree Road hold up after all these years? For me, absolutely. It’s as much about Atlanta as it is about its characters, and it still feels authentic. The people are drawn so vividly that they stay with you long after you close the book, and the language is worth the trip all on its own. Sure, there are stretches where you might wish someone would crack a joke or throw a glass of sweet tea just to stir things up, but Siddons is too busy weaving something bigger.

Revisiting it now, I felt the same tug I did when I first read it while living in Atlanta, and that’s saying something. This isn’t just a novel about a place; it’s a novel that becomes the place. And for me, it was like going back time, only this time with a better vocabulary.

[Claire Fullerton · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Higgins148 · Rating 5 out of 5]

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>"

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Kelly Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started as boring; then, it became messy, depressing, and uncomfortable :)

[Stacy Genobles · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Dick Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Tara Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Patty Campbell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll probably catch flack for this review, but here goes. This masterfully written story is the most depressing book I've ever read. 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. Not a single character in this story of unending southern angst achieves true happiness. The woeful ending, is I suppose, appropriate.

Why did I keep reading it? Because I got caught up in the madness just like the characters in the story. Would I recommend it? Not unless you're a fan depression and despair.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Johanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Tori Schoen · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Julz · Rating 4 out of 5]

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!

[Mary Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Lisa Steinhauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

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

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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!

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books are just banquets. This is one of them.

[Asuma · Rating 3 out of 5]

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 .

[MaryLucille]

I loved, loved reading the historical inclusions of this fiction set in Atlanta and it sent me down many rabbit holes and very interesting learning of the development and the culture upheaval of upscale Buckhead (and the country, actually) during the 1950s and 1960s. This book also focused very much on the importance of “home”and “family,” a physical place of belonging.
But this book was so depressing to me, from the first line to the last. Peachtree Road begins with the ominous sentences, "The South killed Lucy Bondurant Chastain Venable on the day she was born. It does that to all its women.” IMHO, the South didn’t and doesn’t. She could have thrived.
This book was a gift to me. I had always wanted to read this author and now I have!

Quotes:
“Home is not a place, it's a feeling of belonging and love.”

“The greatest strength lies in forgiveness, for it sets you free from the chains of resentment.”

“ In the pursuit of dreams, don't forget to find joy in the present moment.”

“ In the journey of self-discovery, we find that our greatest teachers are often our own mistakes.”

[Donna]

Popsugar 2021 - longest book on TBR

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

The

[Arthur Sperry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about several generations of Atlanta Aristocracy and populated with some Dickensian characters. Many an unexpected plot twist abounds!