Pat Conroy

They are. The Great Santini is fantastic, and The Water Is Wide is the true story of his teaching poor, uneducated youths in South Carolina. Also a very good read. Sad, heartwarming, funny books.

Read The Great Santini next. You won't be disappointed. I really liked Beach Music, though I sometimes tire of Conroy's overly descriptive prose about the South.

I think I have read 4 or 5 of his books. I liked them all quite a bit and then started learning how autobiographical they were. The abuse that his Father handed to the kids and Conroy's Mother is monumental. I know people like that are out there but it is really painful to see it in his writing.

After all of that, find the eulogy on the Interwebs that he gave his Father at the funeral...really moving.

LINK

quote:

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Starting as a childhood passion that bloomed into a life-long companion, reading has been Conroy's portal to the world, both to the furthest corners of the globe and to the deepest chambers of the human soul. His interests range widely, from Milton to Tolkien, Philip Roth to Thucydides, encompassing poetry, history, philosophy, and any mesmerizing tale of his native South. He has for years kept notebooks in which he records words and expressions, over time creating a vast reservoir of playful turns of phrase, dazzling flashes of description, and snippets of delightful sound, all just for his love of language. But reading for Conroy is not simply a pleasure to be enjoyed in off-hours or a source of inspiration for his own writing. It would hardly be an exaggeration to claim that reading has saved his life, and if not his life then surely his sanity.

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