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Good-bye, Pat Conroy

Good-bye, Pat Conroy

The death of Pat Conroy led to reflection about the beauty of his writing and its impact on the lives of his readers.Pat Conroy, one of my favorite authors, died a little more than a week ago. I’ve been sad ever since. Conroy wrote about the South Carolina coastland like a man head over heels in love. His affection for the ocean and the marshlands where he grew up made readers fall in love with shrimp fishing and boating and southern living. He brought places and people alive with his lush descriptions. He painted word pictures of sunsets vivid and beautiful and vivid enough to make readers cry when the sun slipped behind the horizon.

His stories of abusive, military, larger-than-life fathers and eccentric, brilliant mothers made me cringe as their lives of wild abandon damaged the children in their care. Reading or listening to his novels, all of them biographical, felt like sinking into a frightening and joyful world.

My two favorite books were not his novels, but his memoirs. In My Reading Life, he paid tribute to his mother who nurtured in him a love of reading and of words. A 2011 Gravel Road post details the power and influence the book holds. The audio version is particularly enthralling.

Conroy’s memoir and final book, The Death of Santini, is another favorite. It’s a hard book to read or listen to because Conroy is very frank about his difficult childhood and the devastating affect it had on him and his siblings. Perhaps it resonated deeply with me because I listened to it while writing Does My Child Have PTSD? Truly, he could have been my book’s poster child.

But the memoir was about more than a difficult childhood. It was also about facing demons and transforming pain into stories of grace, forgiveness, and beauty. The memoir was about imperfect and reckless lives that are both cautionary and triumph tales.

Thank you, Pat Conroy, for blessing our lives with your stories and your written words. May they live long and touch hearts for generations to come.

Three Thoughts for Thursday

Three Thoughts for Thursday

yard deer

  1. An invitation to my 40th High School reunion has arrived. How can that be possible? Would you believe I was a child genius who graduated at age 10? No? Well, it was worth a try.
  2. Deer invading the yard. Birds invading the crab apple tree. Bugs invading the house. Spring has sprung!
  3. I’m almost done reading Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides. He is the master of descriptive writing that evokes sense of place and time. I don’t want the book to end. What author writes books you wish would never end?
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

I don’t often go out on a limb to recommend a book before finishing it. But today, after listening to a quarter of My Reading Life, narrated by it’s author, I give it two thumbs up. As a mom, a teacher, an avid reader, a writer, and too broke to take a long vacation this year, My Reading Life resonates with me. Here’s what I like so far:

  • Conroy’s loving tribute to his mother paints the picture of an extraordinary woman. She wasn’t able to attend college, but furthered her education by reading constantly. She taught him to love books, and their family’s story shows the great influence parents have on their children’s reading lives.
  • His English teacher also profoundly influenced Conroy’s career choice and evolved into a life long friendship. For tired, discouraged teachers who doubt the difference they can make in the lives of young people, this real life story will restore hope. I’ve been out of teaching for seven years now, and Conroy’s words reminded me of the nobility inherent in serving children.
  • Conroy’s love of literature, words, and writing echoes my own leanings. After an entire lifetime of being considered strange for preferring reading and savoring beautiful words over recess, gym class, Girl Scout hikes, kick ball, horse back riding, and other non-verbal pursuits, I have discovered a kindred spirit.
  • He has read widely and drops titles like flower petals on the pages. The bad news is that my reading list is getting longer with each chapter read. The good news is that the stack of books on my nightstand will soon glitter with tried and tested literary gems.
  • This memoir makes me want to read more of Conroy’s work. So far, South of Broad has been my only foray into his world, but it won’t be my last. With the price of gas rising daily, reading my way through his novels this summer will be an affordable journey south.

Unless something changes on the way through the remaining two-thirds of A Reading Life, this audio rendition will compel the ownership of a print copy. Like Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water, this book demands the underlining of key phrases, Post-it flags to mark passages that resonate, exclamation marks in the margins, and a list of must-read books  gleaned from its pages and jotted down on the inside front cover. So when I finish listening to My Reading Life, I will give it the active rereading it deserves, something I don’t have time for very often these days.

In my book, that’s the highest compliment there is.