The passing of Pat Conroy is yet another loss in my reading life. He touched a lyrical
nerve in that life, and the magnetism of his dysfunctional family years brought
me into his writings. Although a southerner,
he was a kindred spirit. Even his college
basketball days chronicled in his My
Losing Season resonated on a personal basis. He was a point guard in
college, one of my dreams when I was much younger, although unrealized.
He died of pancreatic cancer. The worst kind I can think of, my own father
having wasted away from the same. And now a dear friend of mine, after successful
Whipple surgery five years ago, fighting the unrelenting return of that dreaded
disease.
One by one, the writers I grew up with, Richard Yates,
John Cheever, John Updike, and now Pat Conroy, passing. There are other writers taking their
place. Literature is alive and well even
in this 140 character world, thanks to luminaries such as Conroy.
In his very personal memoir, My Reading Life, the dedication cried out for being reunited with his
estranged daughter: 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.
My entry on that book, written soon after I emerged from the hospital following complicated
open heart surgery, also noted that dedication and expressed my hope that it
might lead to reconciliation. I wonder
whether it happened, as much for her sake as her father’s.
Goodbye Pat Conroy.
You brought beautiful fiction into my world, a Phoenix rising from the
ashes of a sorrowful childhood.
