Read Online The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Pat Conroy
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up to that promise to myself. No writer has suffered over morning coffee because of the savagery of my review of his or her latest book, and no one ever will.
It was the same winter I drove to Columbia twice a week to a poetry workshop taught by James Dickey. Though his poetry has had an electrifying effect on my writing, it helped me more as a human being to take his measure as a man. I found it dangerous for a poet’s soul tobe surrounded by achingly beautiful coeds who were openly flirtatious with the poet and enamored of his work. I never wanted a column of grad students trailing behind me like a line of newly hatched goslings as I made my way from class to class.
Also, Mr. Dickey alerted me to the dangers of the company of other writers. Although I admired his body of work extravagantly, I never entertained the thought of becoming his friend. He was competitive, hostile, and carnivorous in his relationships with other writers when he was with them on the speaking circuit. When writers gathered, I felt as though I’d been thrown into a tank of moray eels. From the beginning, I distrusted the breed and made a vow to avoid them for the rest of my life. Though I’ve made some great friends among writers, I’ve stayed away from most of them and it’s made for a better and more productive life. I would’ve loved being able to write like Jim Dickey, but didn’t want to be anything like him as a man. His life was a force field of chaos—just like mine would turn out to be.
But my luck had changed and my future had brightened. I was writing well and starting to average a chapter a week as I recounted that year when I was a teacher who learned far more than he taught to the children of a cutoff Gullah nation. Eventually, I failed my kids completely because I ran my mouth and got myself fired by throwing myself into the fray of Southern racial politics. Southern politics was a fanged and poisonous thing that always ate its young. But the island had changed me, and I would never go back to being that young man who arrived on Daufuskie the previous September. I had to go to a small sea island to learn the lessons of a great, bright, and sometimes ruthless world.
In that cold season, the elegant literary agent Julian Bach wrote me a life-changing letter when he agreed to represent
The Water Is Wide
for publication. Then Houghton Mifflin quickly bought it, and later,
Life
magazine would publish an excerpt of it, and 20th Century Fox bought the movie rights. Even though I had brought my family to the point of financial ruin, I could finally breathe again. Barbara lost that look of mourning and fear she had carried with her since the night I was fired. News of the book began to spread through Beaufort, unsettling the town, disturbing the dreams of school board members.
When the book was published in 1972, it caused a firestorm in South Carolina. It produced such a furor in Beaufort that I knew I would soon be moving from the prettiest town on earth. While a student at Beaufort High School, my sister Kathy was called “the nigger lover’s sister,” and Jim, also a student there, was called “the nigger lover’s brother.” I didn’t care what anyone on earth thought about me, but I didn’t want my family suffering for it. My mother was getting into fusses all the time with citizens who accosted her on the streets. Mom was articulate and polite, but she was a warhorse in her spirited, fiery defense of her oldest son. But Beaufort had hurt me deeply, and no longer seemed like the place I could spend the rest of my life. The city of my birth, a more liberal place, began to call out to me. Barbara and I sold our home to my mother and father, who planned to make it their retirement home. We moved to Atlanta in 1973 and toward the disastrous motions of the rest of my life.
When the book was published, I traveled with friends and family over to Daufuskie for the last time. I took four cartons of my book to my kids and their
It was the same winter I drove to Columbia twice a week to a poetry workshop taught by James Dickey. Though his poetry has had an electrifying effect on my writing, it helped me more as a human being to take his measure as a man. I found it dangerous for a poet’s soul tobe surrounded by achingly beautiful coeds who were openly flirtatious with the poet and enamored of his work. I never wanted a column of grad students trailing behind me like a line of newly hatched goslings as I made my way from class to class.
Also, Mr. Dickey alerted me to the dangers of the company of other writers. Although I admired his body of work extravagantly, I never entertained the thought of becoming his friend. He was competitive, hostile, and carnivorous in his relationships with other writers when he was with them on the speaking circuit. When writers gathered, I felt as though I’d been thrown into a tank of moray eels. From the beginning, I distrusted the breed and made a vow to avoid them for the rest of my life. Though I’ve made some great friends among writers, I’ve stayed away from most of them and it’s made for a better and more productive life. I would’ve loved being able to write like Jim Dickey, but didn’t want to be anything like him as a man. His life was a force field of chaos—just like mine would turn out to be.
But my luck had changed and my future had brightened. I was writing well and starting to average a chapter a week as I recounted that year when I was a teacher who learned far more than he taught to the children of a cutoff Gullah nation. Eventually, I failed my kids completely because I ran my mouth and got myself fired by throwing myself into the fray of Southern racial politics. Southern politics was a fanged and poisonous thing that always ate its young. But the island had changed me, and I would never go back to being that young man who arrived on Daufuskie the previous September. I had to go to a small sea island to learn the lessons of a great, bright, and sometimes ruthless world.
In that cold season, the elegant literary agent Julian Bach wrote me a life-changing letter when he agreed to represent
The Water Is Wide
for publication. Then Houghton Mifflin quickly bought it, and later,
Life
magazine would publish an excerpt of it, and 20th Century Fox bought the movie rights. Even though I had brought my family to the point of financial ruin, I could finally breathe again. Barbara lost that look of mourning and fear she had carried with her since the night I was fired. News of the book began to spread through Beaufort, unsettling the town, disturbing the dreams of school board members.
When the book was published in 1972, it caused a firestorm in South Carolina. It produced such a furor in Beaufort that I knew I would soon be moving from the prettiest town on earth. While a student at Beaufort High School, my sister Kathy was called “the nigger lover’s sister,” and Jim, also a student there, was called “the nigger lover’s brother.” I didn’t care what anyone on earth thought about me, but I didn’t want my family suffering for it. My mother was getting into fusses all the time with citizens who accosted her on the streets. Mom was articulate and polite, but she was a warhorse in her spirited, fiery defense of her oldest son. But Beaufort had hurt me deeply, and no longer seemed like the place I could spend the rest of my life. The city of my birth, a more liberal place, began to call out to me. Barbara and I sold our home to my mother and father, who planned to make it their retirement home. We moved to Atlanta in 1973 and toward the disastrous motions of the rest of my life.
When the book was published, I traveled with friends and family over to Daufuskie for the last time. I took four cartons of my book to my kids and their
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