“The Wingos” of Prince Of Tides had me LOLing …. thanks to the troubled genius of Pat Conroy. 
Southern Dysfunctional families have been a popular fiction genre since the invention of paper and movable type; but no one elevated it to NYT Best-seller lists quite like Pat Conroy. Pat Conroy was The Grand Master of The Southern Dysfunctional Family novel.
I have “enjoyed” the several I have read… but can’t read them back-to-back. The dysfuntionality is too intense.
Pat Conroy died Friday from pancreatic cancer. He was 70. The South Carolina Low Country lost a literary legend.
I never met Conroy. I understand he was in a lifelong battle with internal demons ….. the same demons his characters battled in his dozen or so novels.
#
Pat Conroy’s Official Website…..
http://www.patconroy.com/
###
More Cool Stuff ….
BL,
Conroy’s The Great Santini and The Death of Santini are outstanding stories of the author’s journey through life. You should find time to read them both. It will be time well spent.
Brad in Fuquay
I find I have to be in “a Conroy mood” to enjoy his books. PoTides in an all-time favorite.
My Losing Season was not his most popular book but it was my most enjoyable PC read.
Started that one… but never “got into it”. I may give it another try. Beach Music & PofT were my faves.
A little fuzzy with my memory but I think Willie Taylor was on the freshman team.
I believe that is correct. The year before Willie went to The Citadel he played with Pistol Pete at Edwards Military Academy for Pete Meadows.
BL, I’m a Goldsboro High School class of 1962 former athlete (basketball and tennis) and could spend hours reminiscing with you about our mutual remembrances about the battles between GHS and the Kinston Red Devils. In regards to your mention of the EMI basketball team, I saw the EMI team play at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base against the base team. The EMI team also included Chris Ellis(Virginia Tech) and a 7- foot lefty from Windsor, NC( who could hardly run and chew gum) that I think was recruited by The Citadel. After the game, the EMI van pulled up… Read more »
Wasn’t EMI also known as Southwood at one point? In 65-66 UNC had the #2 Freshman BB team in America – Clark, Bunting, Grubar, Tuttle, Brown. The #1 Frosh team was UCLA w/ Alcindor, Allen, et al. That UNC team only lost one game that year. AT VPI to a Chris Ellis-led team.
.
Goldsboro was quite a tennis-power in the early 60s.
From Wikipedia: Southwood College was founded in 1874 in Salemburg, North Carolina and closed in 1973. For many years, two schools, Edwards Military Institute and Pineland College, operated on the same site; on July 1, 1965 the institutions officially became Southwood College.”