Format: Paperback Publisher: Bantam Press ISBN: 0553574574 This publication: 1996 Don't pay: R 217.00

With the spectacular worldwide success of his unforgettable novel The Prince of Tides, Pat Conroy established himself as a major international writer. He now returns with Beach Music, the powerful story of a family haunted by memories that reach back into a troubled past.

Jack McCall, an American living in Rome with his young daughter, is trying to find peace after the recent trauma of his wife's suicide. But his search for solitude is disturbed by his sister-in-law, and by two schoolfriends who want his help in tracking down another classmate who went underground as a Vietnam protestor and never resurfaced. As Jack begins a journey that encompasses the past and the present in both Europe and the American South, he also begins a quest that will lead him to shocking and ultimately liberating truths.