Novelist

The beauty of the language used by Pat Conroy is just one reason why his widely acclaimed books are almost instant best-sellers; the almost autobiographical nature of his stories is another. 

In The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, (both made into successful movies) and the glorious Beach Music, Conroy gives a haunting glimpse into the life of Irish American families, their lives and losses. Beach Music hit the best-seller lists at number one and the film rights were sold to Paramount for a reputed $5 million. 

Heavily influenced by his own childhood as an Irish American growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a military officer from Chicago and a Southern belle from Alabama, his first books were published when he was teaching English to children. 

The Water Is Wide, a book about the chronic conditions in a school off the shore of South Carolina – from which Conroy had been fired – won him a humanitarian award from the National Education Association, and was later made into a movie. 

Conroy divides his time between San Francisco and South Carolina, and recently traveled to Ireland again – he is trying to trace his relatives – as part of president Clinton’s party. His mother once told him” “You’re Irish and you’re Southern, so you have no excuse not to be a writer.” Conroy himself then asked: “Who is more articulate, more eloquent, than the Irish?”