Monday, July 7, 2025

My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

 


There are only a few authors whose works I save after I read them.  One of them is definitely Pat Conroy and it was a major loss to the reading world when he passed away.  Conroy grew up as a military brat and moved constantly as a child.  His life was shaped by the books he read and by his parents.  His mother for instilling the love of reading in him and his father for his example of violent masculinity.

In this book Conroy talks about the people who influenced him to read and in his writing career.  There was an English teacher in high school who not only gave him books but took him to author's homes.  A bookseller in Atlanta where Conroy went almost daily and who encouraged him in many ways.  The poet and author James Dickey whose class he took and whose writing he admired although he found him another example of toxic masculinity.  There was the time he spent living in Paris and Italy.  But mostly he lived in the South and as a Southerner, what he writes always strikes a chord in me.

Another amazing fact about Conroy that comes out in this book is his strength as a friend.  Once a friend, he stayed friends for life.  He was there for his friends as they weakened and died and delivered many eulogies.  He encouraged them and did little things for them that are so easy to overlook in the bustle of day to day life.  Conroy wasn't perfect; he had three marriages and often suffered from depression.  But he was a writing icon and I love everything he wrote.  This book is recommended for all readers.  

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