RIP Pat Conroy
March 5, 2016 12:24 AM Subscribe
Best-selling author Pat Conroy has died at the age of 70.
Among Conroy's better known works were The Prince of Tides, which was later turned into a movie starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand (who also directed), The Great Santini (Robert Duvall played the title character in the film version), and The Lords of Discipline (a brutal take down of a thinly-veiled version of The Citadel, also turned into a film).
Among Conroy's better known works were The Prince of Tides, which was later turned into a movie starring Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand (who also directed), The Great Santini (Robert Duvall played the title character in the film version), and The Lords of Discipline (a brutal take down of a thinly-veiled version of The Citadel, also turned into a film).
This one hits me like a ton of bricks. I love his novels, and I love his prose in all its forms (damn could he write a beautiful sentence). But if you missed his autobiographies, you have missed some of his best work. The Water is Wide tells the story of his ill-fated attempt as a young southern white man to teach in an all black school on a South Carolina coastal island. My favorite of his, My Losing Season, is about his childhood growing up playing basketball, culminating with a much more real account of his time at the Citadel. I can't do either of these books justice. Read one in honor of Pat, who spent his whole life trying to exorcise the demons of his childhood in his writing and gave us beautiful words from that process.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:03 AM on March 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 4:03 AM on March 5, 2016 [20 favorites]
I was in the Citadel campus book store a couple years ago and surprisingly they had a big display of his books.
posted by octothorpe at 4:25 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 4:25 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I picked up The Great Santini when I was just a kid, thinking it had something to do with the circus. It opened my eyes to so many things.
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posted by sallybrown at 4:38 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
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posted by sallybrown at 4:38 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
On my dad's recommendation, I read Beach Music on my honeymoon. I was 22 at the time, having just gotten married in Charleston and vacationing in Italy -- the two major settings for the book -- it was all sort of perfect and deeply moving.
Rereading it a decade later with a much greater sensitivity for how female characters are handled in books, I realized that the protagonist is a massive tool and Conroy did not write women well, at least not in that particular work.
Still, that book was magic to me during a decidedly magical point in my life. I am sorry to hear of Conroy's passing.
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posted by shiu mai baby at 4:39 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
Rereading it a decade later with a much greater sensitivity for how female characters are handled in books, I realized that the protagonist is a massive tool and Conroy did not write women well, at least not in that particular work.
Still, that book was magic to me during a decidedly magical point in my life. I am sorry to hear of Conroy's passing.
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posted by shiu mai baby at 4:39 AM on March 5, 2016 [3 favorites]
I've read several of his books and loved them. Then I read "The Death of Santini" and realized what a jerk Pat Conroy was. I mean, having read those other books it was pretty clear how he got that way, and his personality was all protective armour and scar tissue and such, but yeah, wow. Great storyteller though.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:43 AM on March 5, 2016
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 5:43 AM on March 5, 2016
Yeah, he had some great storytelling abilities, and some very weird ones. He was extra weird about women, but Beach Music, where "betrayed by a friend as a teenager" is as bad as "Holocaust survivor" was a particularly bizarre story. (Which I read as a teenager, so I loved it anyhow.)
He was really a compelling writer, for whatever his literary flaws were.
posted by jeather at 6:00 AM on March 5, 2016
He was really a compelling writer, for whatever his literary flaws were.
posted by jeather at 6:00 AM on March 5, 2016
October 26, 1945
He was almost the last baby born before the boom.
posted by bukvich at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2016
He was almost the last baby born before the boom.
posted by bukvich at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2016
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posted by dfm500 at 7:15 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by dfm500 at 7:15 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
Wow. I woulda pegged him as like a decade older. It seems like he's been sort of this Guy Who Wrote Stuff A Long Time Ago forever, it seems. Santini and Discipline and Tides just percolated into the culture so thoroughly and so quickly that they were classics within just a few years.
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posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by Etrigan at 7:41 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I read his three most famous novels back when I was in high school, so I don't know how credible my reviews are 25 years later, but I remember liking The Lords of Discipline the best by far. It worked equally well as a mystery, a suspense thriller, and savage critique of a thinly-fictionalized Citadel.
The Prince of Tides was one of those rare cases where in my opinion the movie was a significant improvement over the book. The novel to my view over the top, excessive, and overly long. The dramatic climax of the book was so ridiculously preposterous as to be laughable. The film gave the story the much needed editing that never happened in book form.
posted by The Gooch at 8:16 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Prince of Tides was one of those rare cases where in my opinion the movie was a significant improvement over the book. The novel to my view over the top, excessive, and overly long. The dramatic climax of the book was so ridiculously preposterous as to be laughable. The film gave the story the much needed editing that never happened in book form.
posted by The Gooch at 8:16 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by Ink-stained wretch at 10:29 AM on March 5, 2016
posted by Ink-stained wretch at 10:29 AM on March 5, 2016
I'm glad to see some love for My Losing Season, which I think is a great book about what it's like to love a sport for readers who may not be particularly interested in sports. I remember discovering his books when I was an angsty teen, and feeling something true in Conroy's thesis about Southern sons and fathers trying to destroy one another. I don't quite see things that way any more, but I also had a much easier childhood than he did, so I'm not judging. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for his books.
posted by wintermind at 11:42 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by wintermind at 11:42 AM on March 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
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Reading his books made me realize why some people love the capital-S-South as fiercely as they do. His writing was my first encounter with such, lush vivid imagery about the beauty and decay of a certain point in time and place.
posted by jacy at 5:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
Reading his books made me realize why some people love the capital-S-South as fiercely as they do. His writing was my first encounter with such, lush vivid imagery about the beauty and decay of a certain point in time and place.
posted by jacy at 5:59 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
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Because many of us can have "Prince of Tide moments" with our own families, and it is amazing and life-changing.
posted by honey badger at 7:22 AM on March 6, 2016
Because many of us can have "Prince of Tide moments" with our own families, and it is amazing and life-changing.
posted by honey badger at 7:22 AM on March 6, 2016
I don't think I've ever read any of his books; but, my mom is a huge fan and loves cooking his Dunbar macaroni recipe (which, as Conroy tells it, is a funeral casserole dish). This recipe (which, for me, usually includes a few pounds of ground beef and a few other tweaks) has helped me make a lot of people happy.
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posted by NolanRyanHatesMatches at 5:14 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by NolanRyanHatesMatches at 5:14 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]
I found his books engrossing, if not necessarily literature, but he figures largely in my bias against the famed City Lights Bookstore, home of the Beats, founded by Ferlinghetti, etc. When Beach Music was published, I stopped by City Lights to inquire as to whether they had a copy in stock. They very snottily told me that they didn't carry Conroy, because he wasn't up to their literary standards. I said, whoa that's fascinating since I see you have a ton of Anne Rice on your shelves.
I no longer am the fan I used to be, which doesn't mean I'm any greater of a fan of City Lights. Just a few months ago, right around the time that Oliver Sacks' autobiography was released, I stopped in to buy a copy. They told me they didn't plan to carry it until it was released in paperback. I said, are you sure? I mean, that's a year from now. They confirmed that's what they meant. I left scratching my head.
posted by janey47 at 12:54 PM on March 7, 2016
I no longer am the fan I used to be, which doesn't mean I'm any greater of a fan of City Lights. Just a few months ago, right around the time that Oliver Sacks' autobiography was released, I stopped in to buy a copy. They told me they didn't plan to carry it until it was released in paperback. I said, are you sure? I mean, that's a year from now. They confirmed that's what they meant. I left scratching my head.
posted by janey47 at 12:54 PM on March 7, 2016
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