There’s a family’s painful past and another’s painful present. But you certainly couldn’t go wrong starting the way I did, with Beach Music, the closest he ever came to a magnum opus. You’ll find the same big beating heart and heightened drama among his pages. ![]() If you haven’t read Conroy, it doesn’t much matter where you start. Conroy became one of those rare larger-than-life authors, and I know it’s because of the warmth and love that radiated through his writing, that seemed to reach out of the page. He writes of families we’re born with and those we create, I can think of few other examples of friendships as fierce as those found in his novels. And yet, while reading his books could be harrowing, most of them are all about love. Conroy returned to his demons in book after book, none of them were ever quite laid to rest. He was often accused of putting too much in his plots and stories, but he could almost always respond by saying, “That really happened.” The abusive military father, the harrowing hazing of the Citadel, so much loss and mental illness and suicide. Conroy had lifetimes worth of stories, so many it almost defies belief. Many writers can’t mine their lives for more than a book or two. Loosely autobiographical fiction is nothing new, but for Conroy it was a way of life. When you’ve read a certain quota of Conroy’s books, you feel like he’s someone you’ve had long conversations with, which is probably why his death has me unexpectedly wrecked. I read his new books when they came out, South of Broad (not his best) and My Losing Season, (the only memoir about sports I’ve ever loved) and The Death of Santini (full to the brim of all the juicy real-life details any Conroy reader always wanted to know). Later I found The Water is Wide and The Great Santini. After that I read The Lords of Discipline and The Prince of Tides. By the end of the first chapter, I could not put it down. And the minute I agreed to open it up, I was a goner. I needed a reprieve from working my way through the canon, and I’d often stand in front of my parents’ bookshelves and ask for something to read, only to refuse all of my mother’s suggestions with a heavy dose of teenage sighing.īeach Music looked different than the spy novels and war books that made up most of my parents’ books. I was a teenager, and I’d quickly jumped from young adult novels to the heavy, heady classics. Walsh, Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain, Soil by Jamie Kornegay, The Sound of Glass by Karen White and Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander.Beach Music by Pat Conroy was the first modern adult novel I remember reading. Some of those are Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews, Dear Carolina by Kristy Woodson Harvey, Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell, My Sunshine Away by M. ![]() The long list for fiction includes many of the authors we’ve interviewed and books we reviewed in 2015. Winners will be announced on July 4 (Independents Day). From there, the finalists will be sent to a jury of booksellers in each category, who will then choose the winning book for their category. SIBA member booksellers will vote on the long list over the month of March, and finalists for each category in the 2016 Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize will be announced in April. SIBA received more than 140 nominations for the prize, resulting in what Jewell calls a “dream reading list.” All nominated books had to be Southern in nature, or by a Southern author, and had to have been published in 2015. Poppy’s Pants Young Adult Prize (Ages 10+) ![]() The Water is Wide History & Life Stories Prize The world of Southern literature is a rich place today because of the encouragement he extends to new authors and the commitment he has always shown towards the Southern literary community.”Īlong with the new name, The Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize also has an expanded list of categories, including: “Pat Conroy has been a force for good in the world of Southern books and literature and we want to acknowledge that,” SIBA Executive Director Wanda Jewell said about renaming their awards. “He has not just written some of our favorite books, he has been incredibly generous in his support of readers, of booksellers, and of other writers. The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) has renamed its book awards for one of the South’s most beloved writers: Pat Conroy.
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