33 Facts About Pat Conroy

Donald Patrick Conroy was an American author who wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs; his books The Water is Wide, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into films, the last two being nominated for Oscars.

Pat Conroy is recognized as a leading figure of late-20th-century Southern literature.

Pat Conroy's father was a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and Conroy moved often in his youth, attending 11 schools by the time he was 15.

Pat Conroy did not have a hometown until his family settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he finished high school.

Pat Conroy had said his stories were heavily influenced by his military brat upbringing, and in particular, difficulties experienced with his own father, a US Marine Corps pilot, who was physically and emotionally abusive toward his children.

Pat Conroy cites his family's frequent military-related moves and growing up immersed in military culture as significant influences in his life.

Pat Conroy's first book, The Boo, is a collection of anecdotes about cadet life centering on Lt.

Pat Conroy began the book in 1968, after learning that Lt.

Pat Conroy then accepted a job teaching children in a one-room schoolhouse on remote Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

Pat Conroy was fired at the conclusion of his first year on the island for his unconventional teaching practices, including his refusal to use corporal punishment on students, and for his lack of respect for the school's administration.

Pat Conroy later wrote The Water Is Wide based on his experiences as a teacher.

Pat Conroy's father, looking to prove that he was not like the character in the book, changed his behavior drastically.

The rift was not healed until 2000, when Pat Conroy was awarded an honorary degree and asked to deliver the commencement address the following year.

In 1986, Pat Conroy published The Prince of Tides about Tom Wingo, an unemployed South Carolina teacher who goes to New York City to help his sister, Savannah, a poet who has attempted suicide, to come to terms with their past.

In 1995, Conroy published Beach Music, a novel about an American expatriate living in Rome who returns to South Carolina upon news of his mother's terminal illness.

In 2002, Pat Conroy published My Losing Season where he takes the reader through his last year playing basketball, as point guard and captain of the Citadel Bulldogs.

The Pat Conroy Cookbook, published in 2004, is a collection of favorite recipes accompanied by stories about his life, including many stories of growing up in South Carolina.

In 2009, Pat Conroy published South of Broad, which again uses the familiar backdrop of Charleston following the suicide of newspaperman Leo King's brother, and alternates narratives of a diverse group of friends between 1969 and 1989.

In May 2013, Pat Conroy was named editor-at-large of Story River Books, a newly created fiction division of the University of South Carolina Press.

In October 2013, four years after being first publicized, Pat Conroy published a memoir called The Death of Santini, which recounts the volatile relationship he shared with his father up until his father's death in 1998.

Pat Conroy was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame on March 18,2009.

Pat Conroy was a major supporter of the research and writing efforts of journalist Mary Edwards Wertsch in her identification of the hidden subculture of American Military Brats, the children of career military families, who grow up moving constantly, deeply immersed in the military, and often personally affected by war.

Pat Conroy contributed a now widely circulated ten-page essay on American military childhood, including his own childhood, to Wertsch's book, which was used as the introduction.

Pat Conroy's book speaks in a language that is clear and stinging and instantly recognizable to me [as a brat], yet it's a language I was not even aware I spoke.

Pat Conroy authorized the use of his work in the award-winning documentary Brats: Our Journey Home directed by Donna Musil, that endeavors to bring the hidden subculture of military brats into greater public awareness, as well as aiding military brat self-awareness and support.

Pat Conroy adopted both girls after he married their mother, and then they had a daughter of their own, Megan.

Pat Conroy married his third wife, writer Cassandra King, in May 1998.

Pat Conroy lived in Beaufort with wife Cassandra until his death.

Pat Conroy writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness.

Pat Conroy attempted suicide in the mid-1970s while writing The Great Santini.

On February 15,2016, Pat Conroy stated on his Facebook page that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer.

Pat Conroy's funeral was held on March 8,2016, at St Peter's Catholic Church in Beaufort, South Carolina.

Pat Conroy is buried in St Helena Memorial Gardens cemetery near the Penn Center.