The world without Pat Conroy is a sadder place for me

We always think there will be time.

I don't remember when I first read one of Pat Conroy's books. It might have been in the 1970's or it might have been a few years later. I think it must have been "The Great Santini," although it's possible it was "The Water is Wide."

Pat Conroy

Whichever it was, I was hooked.

As the years passed, I read everything he wrote except for a cookbook. I saw all four of the movies based on his books. Two of them were pretty good, one was all right and "The Lords of Discipline" was awful. Anyone who has read the book and seen the movie will understand when I say the film turned a life-and-death matter into a small inconvenience.

I wasn't that thrilled with "The Prince of Tides." Mostly I thought the movie left out the wrong things and included some of the wrong things, although director Barbra Streisand sure did make actress Streisand's legs look great on film.


As much as I loved Conroy's novels, I was disappointed that there were so few. After "Prince of Tides" came out in 1986, there were only two more, "Beach Music" in 1996 and "South of Broad" in 2009.

For the folks who called "Prince of Tides" his masterpiece, I can't really disagree, but "Beach Music" was a far more ambitious book that resonated more with me. Imagine a book that along with all the usual Conroy characters included the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War protests and still did World War II and the Holocaust in a big way.

Too big for a movie, I suppose, although with what has been happening lately with books like "11.22.63" and others, I had been hoping for a limited series version.

It probably won't happen now. Conroy died yesterday of pancreatic cancer, one of the really nasty killers. The last book he completed was probably the last one he really had to do, the true story of his relationship with his father.

He said he had more books he wanted to write, and he had two in progress when he died at age 70.

Maybe we'll see them, maybe we won't.

All I can say is that life without the prospect of there ever being another Conroy book is a little less pleasant.

I've read all my Conroy novels at least two or three times, and I've read five Conroy books aloud to my wife.

I guess I'm going to have to pick up that cookbook.