Peg Peek and Don Conroy brought the mean South and hurt Ireland to each other’s bloodstreams. My mother’s role was goddess of light and harmony-an Arcadian figure spinning through the grasses and wildflowers on long, hot summer days. My father thundered out of the sky in black-winged fighter planes, every inch of him a god of war. He was also meaner than a shit-house rat, and I remember hating him even when I was in diapers.įor a long time, I thought I was born into a mythology instead of a family. He fought well and honorably in three wars and at one time was one of the most highly decorated Marine aviators in the corps. He was a night fighter comfortable with machine-gun fire and napalm. But I came into the world as the son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot as fierce as Achilles. It is both the wound and foundation of my work. Only rarely have I drifted far from the bed where I was conceived.
No man or woman in their pantheon of family or acquaintances has ever taken a curtain call in their own well-wrought and shapely books. They make sure I know that their imaginations soar into realms and fragments completely invented by them. Through the years, I’ve met many writers who tell me with great pride that they consider autobiographical fiction as occupying a lower house in the literary canon. My own stormy autobiography has been my theme, my dilemma, my obsession, and the fly-by-night dread I bring to the art of fiction. I’ve been writing the story of my own life for over forty years. Note: This excerpt contains language that some readers may find offensive. I wanted to, at least in my own words, tell the story I think my family lived while I was here on Earth." The whole Conroy family together in 1965. What was real that I have disguised in these novels, you know, the actual circumstances that made some of these scenes come alive. I have been writing about this family for 40 years."īut with his new memoir, " The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son," Conroy says, "what I want to do is go back and try to tell what happened. Pat Conroy's troubled family history has been the wellspring of many of his novels, including "The Great Santini" and "The Prince of Tides."Īs he tells Here & Now's Robin Young, "No writer has been imprisoned by his family like I have, in the history of American letters. Pat Conroy is author of "The Death of Santini." (Jennifer Hitchcock)
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