Reading a Donald Patrick Conroy novel is like watching an artist turn paint into forms and colors that grab your imagination. The first Conroy book I read, Lords of Discipline, drew me into the author’s world of military family life, violence, denial, discipline, loyalty, and sports. Conroy was the abused son of a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot who called himself The Great Santini, which became the title of his son’s 1976 novel. It also became a movie, as did many of Conroy’s novels. Conroy is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th Centry Southern literature. His writing caused family and other people to avoid and even sever ties with him, but Conroy persisted in speaking the truth on difficult topics such as military hazing, racism, and his own childhood pain. In an NYT interview, Conroy said, “The reason I write is to explain my life to myself . . . I’ve discovered that when I do, I’m explaining other people’s lives to them.”
The books shown above are only a sample of my reading of Pat Conroy. Other titles include My Losing Season and The Death of Santini.
I often read one of Conroy’s novels, cringing at one moment and then chuckling at the next paragraph. He wrote to express himself and make sense of his life. An example of his bitter-sweet writing is this compound sentence: “I never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.”