Celebrate Pat Conroy's New Book at

The first of seven children born to a young career military officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, Pat Conroy time and again drew upon personal experience to create his bestselling novels. Three of them, The Boo, The Lords of Discipline and My Losing Season, focused on his experience as a cadet at The Citadel, the military college of South Carolina, located in Charleston. 

Conroy's brief tenure as a teacher of underprivileged black children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island formed the basis for The Water is Wide, which was later turned into the film Conrack starring Jon Voight. The book won a humanitarian award from the National Education Association.

Other Conroy novels were adapted for the screen, as well. The Great Santini, the precursor to the current memoir, explored conflicts in the author's childhood, including his ambivalent love for his violent, abusive father. It became the basis for a feature-length motion picture starring Robert Duvall in the title role. The Prince of Tides, one of the most beloved novels of modern time, was made into a highly successful feature film directed by and starring Barbra Streisand and actor Nick Nolte. His novel Beach Music told the story of a young American who moves to Rome to escape the painful memory of his wife's suicidal leap from a bridge in South Carolina. South of Broad, his fifth novel and ninth book, was a love letter to the city of Charleston. The Pat Conroy Cookbook soon followed, and then My Reading Life, a compilation of the books that most influenced him.

Pat Conroy's father, Donald Patrick Conroy, was a towering figure in his son's life. The Marine Corps fighter pilot was often brutal, cruel, and violent; as Pat says, "I hated my father long before I knew there was an English word for 'hate.'" As the oldest of seven children who were dragged from military base to military base across the South, Pat bore witness to the toll his father's behavior took on his siblings, and especially on his mother, Peg. She was Pat's lifeline to a better world-that of books and culture. But eventually, despite repeated confrontations with his father, Pat managed to claw his way toward a life he could have only imagined as a child.

     Pat's great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his family history. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Pat much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But as Pat tenderly chronicles here, even the oldest of wounds can heal. In the final years of Don Conroy's life, he and his son reached a rapprochement of sorts. Quite unexpectedly, the Santini, who had freely doled out physical abuse to his wife and children, refocused his ire on those who had turned on Pat over the years. He defended his son's honor.

     The Death of Santini is at once a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle and a poignant lesson in how the ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can soften even the meanest of men, lending significance to one of the most-often quoted lines from Pat's bestselling novel The Prince of Tides: "In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness."

According to Maggie Schein, Pat Conroy's assistant, many fans have inquired over the years as to what really happened on the golf green between Pat and his father. Good news for fans, The Death of Santini, finally reveals the truth about that storied scene from The Great Santini,  along with addressing the depth of his father's violence.

While Pat Conroy's childhood was far less than idyllic, according to Schein, his personal "therapy" in dealing with it all has been through his writing over the years. Even though no one would wish that type of dysfunction and volatility upon any child, the literary world is a more enlightened place because of Pat Conroy's firm presence in the midst of it and his willingness to bare his demons.

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The Center for the Arts at the University of South Carolina Beaufort will present "An Evening with Pat Conroy," Saturday, Oct. 26, at 7 p.m. at the Center for the Arts on the university's historic Beaufort campus.

The event is a kickoff fundraiser to launch a capital improvement campaign for renovations at the center. It will also commemorate the advance release of Conroy's latest book, The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and his Son.

Conroy's lecture will be followed by a reception at the historic 1780 Barnwell House across the street from the Center for the Arts. Tickets are available at $150 per person for reserved seating at the lecture, a signed copy of the new book, and attendance at the reception with the author. Photos with Conroy and book-signing opportunities will be available at the reception. General Admission tickets for the lecture are priced at $100 per person. Sponsorship opportunities and naming opportunities for distinct sections of the center are available through the Office of Development at USCB.

For more information about "An Evening With Pat Conroy," contact Bonnie Hargrove, director of the Center for the Arts, at 843-521-4145 or visit www.uscbcenterforthearts.com.