"The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son" Pat Conroy

"Not a single family finds itself exempt from that one haunted casualty who suffered irreparable damage in the crucible they entered at birth. Where some children can emerge from conditions of soul-killing abuse and manage to make their lives into something of worth and value, others can’t limp away from the hurts and gleanings time decanted for them in flawed beakers of memory." 

Pat Conroy in "The Death of Santini"

There are a few books that have touched me profoundly.  "The Great Santini," in both book and movie form, is one.  I saw the movie first and then sought out the book.  I then continued to read other Conroy books looking for that same raw emotion.  I was thirsty to understand how a family could feel as much as the Meecham's did.  I also wanted to know how a family could function through the chaos instead of just falling apart.  I found some more of that in "The Prince of Tides,"  Conroy's work has not only left me an unforgettable afterimage of family life but also helped me understand at least the motivations for the behaviors of some of my own family.

Eleven days ago I left for Hawaii and was going to spend 10 hours in the air and a couple of more in airports.  If I have time in between flights, I must visit the airport bookstore.  This title grabbed my attention, and between the flights to Hawaii and back I finished it.  I would have completed it in one reading given the time.

In this memoir, Conroy tells us about his relationship with his father, the abusive childhood that was the inspiration for "The Great Santini," the aftermath of the release of that book and the subsequent movie, and the continuing relationship between Pat and his father, Don, and how it changed over time.  Of course, that story could not be told without focusing as well on Pat's mother, Peg, and his 6 siblings, especially Carol Ann and Tom.  I was surprised to learn that Peg was physically abusive to Carol Ann, and saddened to learn more about Tom's descent into schizophrenia and later suicide.

We are also introduced to the grandparents, uncles and cousins from Don's Chicago and Midwest family of Irish descent and Peg's fundamentalist upbringing in Appalachia.  At one time Pat hypothesizes on the religious practices of his mother, and how that would explain her comfort handling snakes.

Conroy's work has a little bit of everything for me:  the back story and some publishing history of his literary works, stories of life in Beaufort and the Low Country where I spend increasing amounts of time, and a deeper understanding of the fictional characters he writes about.  I have a morbid fascination with his family;  morbid because I am using their pain as some sort of entertainment, and fascination in their ability to be brutally expressive.  Yet, for all the yelling, fighting, and crying, the patriarch was never able to communicate.

I love Conroy's prose.  It drips with rich mystery like Spanish moss from trees.  I have "My Losing Season" somewhere on the books-to-be-finished shelf.  I'll have to hunt it up.  I might also have to reread "The Great Santini."  Powerful stuff.