Pat Conroy

Donald Patrick "Pat" Conroy (October 26, 1945 – March 4, 2016) was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books The Water is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into films, the latter two being Oscar nominated. He is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature.[1]

For persons of a similar name, see Patrick Conroy (disambiguation).
Pat Conroy
Conroy in 2013
BornDonald Patrick Conroy
(1945-10-26)October 26, 1945
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
DiedMarch 4, 2016(2016-03-04) (aged 70)
Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S.
OccupationNovelist
Period1970–2016
Genre
  • Literary fiction
  • nonfiction
Signature
Website
patconroy.com

Early life

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he was the eldest of seven children (five boys and two girls) born to Marine Colonel Donald Conroy, of Chicago, Illinois and the former Frances "Peggy" Peek of Alabama. His father was a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and Conroy moved often in his youth, attending 11 schools by the time he was 15.[2] He did not have a hometown until his family settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he finished high school. During his senior year in high school, he was a mentee of Ann Head who was an influence on his future writing.[3] His alma mater is The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, where he graduated from the Corps of Cadets portion of the college.

Conroy had said his stories were heavily influenced by his military brat upbringing, and in particular, difficulties experienced with his own father, a US Marine Corps pilot, who was physically and emotionally abusive toward his children. The pain of a youth growing up in such a harsh environment is evident in Conroy's novels, which use autobiographical material, particularly The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides.[4] While living in Orlando, Florida, Conroy's fifth-grade basketball team defeated a team of sixth graders, making the sport his prime outlet for bottled-up emotions for more than a dozen years. Conroy also cites his family's frequent military-related moves and growing up immersed in military culture as significant influences in his life (in both positive and negative ways).

A standout athlete, he was recruited to The Citadel to play basketball; his 2002 book My Losing Season focused on his experiences playing his senior year, and like The Lords of Discipline, also served as a retrospective of his cadet years.

Writing career

Conroy was a graduate of the Corps of Cadets program at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina and his experiences there provided the basis for two of his best-known works, the novel The Lords of Discipline and the memoir My Losing Season.[5] The latter details his senior year on the school's underdog basketball team, which won the longest game in the history of Southern Conference basketball against rival Virginia Military Institute in quadruple overtime in 1967.

His first book, The Boo, is a collection of anecdotes about cadet life centering on Lt. Colonel Thomas Nugent Courvousie, who had served as Assistant Commandant of Cadets at The Citadel from 1961 to 1968;[6] Courvoisie was the inspiration for the fictional character Colonel Thomas Berrineau, a.k.a. "The Bear", in The Lords Of Discipline. Conroy began the book in 1968, after learning that Lt. Colonel Courvoisie had been removed from his position as assistant commandant and given a job in the warehouse; he paid to self-publish the book, borrowing the money from a bank.[5][7][8]

After graduating from The Citadel, Conroy taught English in Beaufort, South Carolina; while there he met and married Barbara Jones, a young widow of the Vietnam War who was pregnant with her second child.[9] He then accepted a job teaching children in a one-room schoolhouse on remote Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

Conroy was fired at the conclusion of his first year on the island for his unconventional teaching practices, including his refusal to use corporal punishment on students, and for his lack of respect for the school's administration. He later wrote The Water Is Wide based on his experiences as a teacher. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.[10] It was also made into a feature film, Conrack, starring Jon Voight in 1974. Hallmark produced a television version of the book in 2006.

In 1976, Conroy published his novel, The Great Santini. The main character of the novel is Marine fighter pilot Colonel "Bull" Meecham, who dominates and terrorizes his family. Bull Meecham also psychologically abuses his teenage son Ben. The character is based on Conroy's father Donald. (According to My Losing Season, Donald Conroy was even worse than the character depicted in Santini.[11][12])

The Great Santini caused friction within the Conroy family, who felt that he had betrayed family secrets by writing about his father. According to Conroy, members of his mother's family would picket his book signings, passing out pamphlets asking people not to buy the novel.[13] The friction contributed to the failure of his first marriage.[14] However, the book also eventually helped repair Conroy's relationship with his father, and they became very close. His father, looking to prove that he was not like the character in the book, changed his behavior drastically.[15]

According to Conroy, his father would often sign copies of his son's novels, "I hope you enjoy my son's latest work of fiction." He would underline the word "fiction" five or six times. "That boy of mine sure has a vivid imagination. Ol' lovable, likable Col. Don Conroy, USMC (Ret.), the Great Santini."[16] The novel was made into a film of the same name in 1979, starring Robert Duvall.

Publication of The Lords of Discipline in 1980 upset many of his fellow graduates of The Citadel, who felt that his portrayal of campus life was highly unflattering. The novel was adapted for the screenplay of a 1983 film of the same name, starring David Keith as Will McLean and Robert Prosky as Colonel "Bear" Berrineau. The rift was not healed until 2000, when Conroy was awarded an honorary degree and asked to deliver the commencement address the following year. In 1986, Conroy published The Prince of Tides about Tom Wingo, an unemployed South Carolina teacher who goes to New York City to help his sister, Savannah, a poet who has attempted suicide, to come to terms with their past. Again, the novel was made into a film of the same name in 1991.

In 1995, Conroy published Beach Music, a novel about an American expatriate living in Rome who returns to South Carolina upon news of his mother's terminal illness. The story reveals his attempt to confront personal demons, including the suicide of his wife, the subsequent custody battle with his in-laws over their daughter, and the attempt by a film-making friend to rekindle old friendships which were compromised during the days of the Vietnam War.

In 2002, Pat Conroy published My Losing Season where he takes the reader through his last year playing basketball, as point guard and captain of the Citadel Bulldogs. The Pat Conroy Cookbook, published in 2004, is a collection of favorite recipes accompanied by stories about his life, including many stories of growing up in South Carolina. In 2009, Conroy published South of Broad, which again uses the familiar backdrop of Charleston following the suicide of newspaperman Leo King's brother, and alternates narratives of a diverse group of friends between 1969 and 1989.

In May 2013, Conroy was named editor-at-large of Story River Books, a newly created fiction division of the University of South Carolina Press.[17] In October 2013, four years after being first publicized,[18] Conroy published a memoir called The Death of Santini, which recounts the volatile relationship he shared with his father up until his father's death in 1998.[19]

Conroy was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame on March 18, 2009.[20]

Military brat cultural identity and awareness movement

Conroy was a major supporter of the research and writing efforts of journalist Mary Edwards Wertsch in her identification of the hidden subculture of American Military Brats, the children of career military families, who grow up moving constantly, deeply immersed in the military, and often personally affected by war.[21]

Conroy's essay on military childhood

In 1991, Wertsch "launched the movement for military brat cultural identity" with her book Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood inside the Fortress. In researching her book, Wertsch identified common themes from interviews of over 80 offspring of military households, including the special challenges, strengths and also the unique subculture experienced by American "military brats". While this book does not purport to be a scientific study, subsequent research has validated many of her findings.[21]

Conroy contributed a now widely circulated ten-page essay on American military childhood, including his own childhood, to Wertsch's book, which was used as the introduction. It included the following:

Her book speaks in a language that is clear and stinging and instantly recognizable to me [as a brat], yet it's a language I was not even aware I spoke. She isolates the military brats of America as a new indigenous subculture with our own customs, rites of passage, forms of communication, and folkways .... With this book, Mary [Wertsch] astonished me and introduced me to a secret family I did not know I had.[22]

Conroy's role in Brats: Our Journey Home

Conroy also authorized the use of his work in the award-winning documentary Brats: Our Journey Home directed by Donna Musil, that endeavors to bring the hidden subculture of military brats into greater public awareness, as well as aiding military brat self-awareness and support.[23]

The documentary ends with a quote of Conroy about the invisibility of the military brat subculture to the wider American society.[23] Conroy wrote, "We spent our entire childhoods in the service of our country, and no one even knew we were there."[23]

Personal life

Conroy was married three times. His first marriage was to Barbara (née Bolling) Jones on October 10, 1969, while he was teaching on Daufuskie Island.[24] Jones, who had been Conroy's next door neighbor in Beaufort, South Carolina, had been widowed when her first husband, Joseph Wester Jones III, a fighter pilot stationed in Vietnam, had been shot down and killed. Jones already had one daughter, Jessica, and was pregnant at the time of her husband's death with their second child, Melissa. He adopted both girls after he married their mother, and then they had a daughter of their own, Megan. They divorced in 1977.[25]

Conroy then married Lenore (née Gurewitz) Fleischer in 1981.[25] He became the stepfather to her two children, Gregory and Emily, and the couple also had one daughter,[26] to whom he dedicated his 2010 book My Reading Life, "This book is dedicated to my lost daughter, Susannah Ansley Conroy. Know this: I love you with my heart and always will. Your return to my life would be one of the happiest moments I could imagine." Conroy and Fleischer divorced on October 26, 1995, Conroy's 50th birthday.[27] Conroy married his third wife, writer Cassandra King, in May 1998.

A friend of Conroy, political cartoonist Doug Marlette, died in a car accident in July 2007. Conroy and Joe Klein eulogized Marlette at the funeral.[28] There were 10 eulogists in all, and Conroy called Marlette his best friend,[29] and said: "The first person to cry, when he heard about Doug's death, was God".[30]

Conroy lived in Beaufort with wife Cassandra until his death. In 2007, he commented that she was a much happier writer than he was: "I'll hear her cackle with laughter at some funny line she's written. I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. She writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness."[31]

As an adult, Conroy suffered from depression, had several breakdowns and contemplated suicide.[32][33][34] He attempted suicide in the mid-1970s while writing The Great Santini [35].

Death

On February 15, 2016, Conroy stated on his Facebook page that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer.[36] He died on March 4, 2016, at 70 years old.[5] Conroy's funeral was held on March 8, 2016 at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Beaufort, South Carolina.[37]

Pat Conroy is buried in St. Helena Memorial Gardens cemetery (Ernest Drive, Saint Helena Island 29920) near the Penn Center. The Penn Center is a National Historic Landmark that provided educational facilities to freed Gullah slaves after the Civil War and continues to serve as an African-American cultural and educational center.

Legacy

Located in Beaufort, South Carolina, the Pat Conroy Literary Center was incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization on March 19, 2016. The center, which houses a collection of Conroy memorabilia, seeks to "continue his legacy in the magnificent coastal landscape where his storytelling began and beyond, supporting a vibrant literary community that reflects Pat Conroy’s undying delight in the power of the human voice."[38] In 2017, the Pat Conroy Literary Center was designated a Literary Landmark by the American Library Association.[39] The same year, it became the first site in South Carolina to be selected as an affiliate of the American Writers Museum.[40]

The Pat Conroy Literary Center hosts a number of educational activities and cultural events, including an annual literary festival.[41]

Works

Awards

See also

References
  1. Folks, Jeffrey J.; Perkins, James A. (1997). Southern Writers at Century's End. University Press of Kentucky. p. 1. ISBN 9780813130972. Retrieved May 31, 2013. southern narrative.
  2. Schudel, Matt (March 4, 2016). "Pat Conroy, best-selling author of 'Great Santini' and 'Prince of Tides,' dies at 70". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  3. Lauderdale, David (October 24, 2015). "Lauderdale: Meet Pat Conroy's 'First Novelist'". The Island Packet. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
  4. Weeks, Brigette (March 4, 2016). "Pat Conroy: Into the Heart of a Family". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  5. Grimes, William (March 5, 2016). "Pat Conroy, Author of 'The Prince of Tides' and 'The Great Santini,' Dies at 70". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 30, 2018.
  6. "Lt. Col. Thomas Nugent Courvoisie - The Boo - passes away". Retrieved July 7, 2007.
  7. Robertson, Brewster Milton (March 4, 2016). "From the Archives: Pat Conroy's books capture his personal pain, and 'Beach Music' is no exception." Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 5, 2016. Review of Beach Music, originally published in The Times on June 27, 1995.
  8. Conroy, Pat (May 3, 2006). "Pat Conroy's eulogy to Lt. Col. Thomas Nugent Courvoisie." The Citadel Newsroom. The Citadel. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  9. Hoefer, Anthony D., Jr. (2008). "Conroy, Pat." The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Volume 9: Literature. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. p. 228-229.
  10. "Home". Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
  11. Newsom, Jim. "Winter Reading", Port Folio Weekly, December 17, 2002.
  12. O'Neill, Molly. "Pat Conroy's Tale: Of Time and 'Tides'", The New York Times, December 22, 1991.
  13. "Novelist Turns Adversity Into Profit : Pat Conroy's Family Is the Stuff of Fiction". Los Angeles Times. 1986-12-12. Retrieved 2019-12-12.
  14. Barnes and Noble author biography page Archived 2009-04-08 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 22 October 2009.
  15. Pat Conroy interview, lcweekly.com; accessed March 4, 2016.
  16. Conroy, Pat (2010). - My Reading Life (Chapter 6), Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; ISBN 9780385533843.
  17. Crutcher, Paige (May 13, 2013). "Pat Conroy Named Editor-at-Large for USC Press". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  18. Minzesheimer, Bob (August 10, 2009). "Pat Conroy returns to familiar turf with 'South of Broad'". USA Today. Retrieved October 28, 2013.
  19. "Conroy Memoir About His Father Coming In October". Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  20. "South Carolina Hall Of Fame: Pat Conroy". Archived from the original on May 7, 2013. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  21. Podcast interview with Rudy Maxa, militarybrat.com; retrieved January 28, 2007.
  22. From the introduction to the book, but quoted from"TCK World's Suggested Reading". Archived from the original on December 30, 2006. Retrieved December 30, 2006.CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  23. Musil, Donna, Producer and Director, "Brats: Our Journey Home" Documentary about Military Brats, Brats Without Borders Inc., Atlanta Georgia, 2005.
  24. Conroy, Pat (1987) The Water is Wide. - New York, New York: Random House, p. 103; ISBN 978-0-553-26893-5.
  25. Knadle, Charlene Babb (2006), Popular Contemporary Writers ("Pat Conroy" section), p. 470; ISBN 978-0-7614-7601-6.
  26. Knadle, p. 471.
  27. Conroy, Pat (2002). My Losing Season, New York: Nan A. Talese, p. 10; ISBN 978-0-385-48912-6.
  28. Independent Weekly, "Goodbye, Doug Marlette" Archived February 14, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, indyweek.com, July 18, 2007.
  29. "Friends Remember Doug Marlette As Staunch Defender of Free Speech", wral.com, July 14, 2007.
  30. Klein, Joe (July 15, 2007). "In Memorium...and a Touch of Class". Swampland. time.com. Archived from the original on December 24, 2007. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  31. "Pat Conroy to Publish 1st Book Since '95". washingtonpost.com. Associated Press. April 7, 2007. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  32. Fesperman, Dan (26 April 2000). "Pat Conroy and Depression: Psychotherapy helps turn a page". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  33. Schudel, Matt (4 March 2016). "Obituary: "Pat Conroy, best-selling author of 'Great Santini' and 'Prince of Tides,' dies at 70"". Washington Post. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  34. Thompson, Wright. "His Winning Season: The story of Pat Conroy, the real 'Great Santini' and The Citadel basketball team's remarkable run". Pat Conroy. ESPN.com. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
  35. Conroy, Pat (13 March 2018). Pat Conroy : my exaggerated life. Clark, Katherine, 1962 November 11-. Columbia. ISBN 978-1-61117-908-8. OCLC 1023801690.
  36. Lauderdale, David (March 4, 2016). "Beaufort's prince, Pat Conroy, goes home". The Beaufort Gazette. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  37. Deerwester, Jayme (March 8, 2016). "Nearly 1,200 turn out to say goodbye to author Pat Conroy". USA Today. Archived from the original on July 5, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2016.
  38. "Pat Conroy Literary Center". Pat Conroy Literary Center. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
  39. "Pat Conroy Literary Center Designated a Literary Landmark by American Library Association" (Press release). Pat Conroy Literary Center. November 2, 2017. Archived from the original on August 31, 2018. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
  40. "Conroy Center Selected for American Writers Museum". Lowcountry Weekly. September 5, 2017. Archived from the original on April 16, 2019. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
  41. "Home". Pat Conroy Literary Festival.
  42. Random House LLC
  43. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  44. Salemy, Shirley (June 27, 1993). "1993 Salute to Excellence, Stars of today and tomorrow meet in Glacier" (PDF). Great Falls Tribune.
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