The Lost Prince
Page 24
Pat’s diary brought it all back—his rambunctiousness, his insatiable appetite for fun. He was like a St. Bernard puppy that hadn’t been housebroken—brimming with affection, yet always in danger of smashing furniture. Most of his faults, I decided, were ones of excess. Even his wobbles as an author were mostly the result of trying too hard to walk on a high wire. A line from one of his favorite novels, Madame Bovary, summed up Pat’s sense that: “Human speech is a cracked kettle on which we tap out crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”
I LEFT THE LIBRARY AND set out for the South Carolina coast. My trip to the Low Country had about it the sensation of a four-hour downhill glide. Plenty of time to contemplate what Susannah had said: At the end of his life I had been in Pat’s thoughts and in his heart. Again I pictured his heart as a chambered nautilus with a counter-shaded shell. From above, its dark side blended invisibly with the ocean’s floor. From below, its bright side couldn’t be distinguished from sunlight slanting through seawater. Pat hadn’t chosen this camouflage any more than he had chosen his blue eyes. It was the natural adaptation of a battered child anxious to hide in plain sight and protect himself in all directions.
WHEN I HEARD THAT PAT had chosen to be buried in a Gullah cemetery belonging to the Brick Baptist Church on St. Helena Island, I envisioned a bosky dell overarched by palms and live oaks, and crowded with moss-covered tombs. Instead, his stone stands on parched sandy soil, tufted with coarse weeds. The surrounding chain-link fence suggests a farmer’s stockyard, and across the road, dry-docked boats and stacks of railroad ties bake in the sun smelling of creosote.
The inscription on Pat’s tombstone reads, “My wound is geography, but it is also my anchor, my port of call.” A border of pinecones is pressed into the ground around his grave, framing mementoes from devoted fans. Coins of various currencies, a Hong Kong $10 bill, lyrical poems and earnest personal notes in clear plastic jackets, conch shells, oyster shells, carnival beads, ballpoint pens, Citadel souvenirs, a softball, a sand dollar, a small basketball, and a miniature bottle of bourbon—they looked to me like the flotsam of a lifetime tossed up in his turbulent wake.
As I paused there, a white-haired man older in appearance than his seventy-three years, I might have been reflecting on my own mortality. But I was actually fumbling to make sense of Pat’s life and death. There floated to mind a few lines from Norman Mailer’s eulogy for Ernest Hemingway. In a suicide that had shaken the faith of a whole generation, Papa had shoved a shotgun into his mouth and blown off the back of his head. In some critics’ estimation, this violated his famous code of stoic courage. But Mailer, not known for his generosity to competitors, commented, “The truth of [Hemingway’s] long odyssey is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner landscape was a nightmare, and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods. It may even be that the final judgment on his work may come to the notion that what he failed to do was tragic, but what he accomplished was heroic, for it is possible he carried a weight of anxiety within him from day to day which would have suffocated any man smaller than himself.”
In my opinion, Pat Conroy carried within himself no secret lust to suicide or deeply buried cowardice. Rather, his self-destructive impulses were right on the surface, and he openly depicted the nightmare of his inner landscape. The great weight of anxiety that oppressed him was that no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t escape his childhood. His worst fear, I believe, was that he would kill somebody else. Or almost as bad, that he would beat his children as savagely as he had been beaten. That he never did so represented, in my opinion, an achievement as significant as any in his career.
I’ve never managed to stay mad at Pat Conroy, no more than I have ceased wishing he were still in my life. This despite the fact that, to borrow from Saul Bellow, his “pathologic element could be missed only by those who were laughing too hard to look.” He had hurt me. But who that ever breathed air has not hurt somebody or never been hurt himself? He was my friend, and I never had a better one. But among my regrets is that I didn’t get a chance to ask Pat this question: Who ever loved him more than I did?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is a solitary art, an act of willful isolation. Or so authors often lament. But in fact every book is a collaborative effort. I’d like to thank my agent, Michael Carlisle, and my editor, Jack Shoemaker. Then, too, I’m indebted to a list of friends who read The Lost Prince in its earlier incarnations. A tip of the hat to Tom Carney, Zach Leader, Jonathan Levi, Andy Karsch, Jonathan Galassi, my sons Sean and Marc, and Lucinda Hahn, who went further and suggested substantial editorial improvements. Finally I’d like to thank Lenore and Susannah Conroy for agreeing to be interviewed, and Pat Conroy’s widow and literary executor, Cassandra King, for her permission to quote from his letters, emails, and diaries.
And again, as always, boundless gratitude to my wife, Linda, for her patience and cheerful support.
INDEX
Academy Awards, 70
Agnos, Art, 186
AIDS, 159, 183
Alioto, Joe, 186
American Academy in Rome, 9, 11–12, 44, 75, 78–79, 85, 95, 120, 146
American Booksellers Association, 6, 59–60
Amis, Martin, 98
“Anatomy of a Divorce” (Conroy), 41
Andersen-Schiess, Gabriela, 124–25
Antrim, Harry, 84
AP. See Associated Press (AP)
Ashe, Arthur, 106
Associated Press (AP), 107–108, 135
Atheneum Books, 126, 128–29
Atlanta, Georgia, 10, 40, 45–47, 52, 53, 107, 108, 110, 132, 137, 147, 154, 157, 159, 160, 231, 244, 246, 250
Atlanta Constitution, 154, 159
Atlanta Magazine, 41
Atlantic Monthly, 54
Auchincloss, Hugh D., 96
Bach, Julian, 73–74, 80
Baye, Nathalie, 156
BBC, 106, 124
Beach Music (Conroy), 95, 97, 132, 136, 148, 153, 154, 158, 162, 166, 175, 176, 188, 195, 233, 253
Beaufort, South Carolina, 27, 32, 39, 109, 110, 183, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242, 243
Belk, Tim, 159, 182–84, 185, 189
Bellow, Saul, 99, 263
Bennett, William, 225
Benoit, Joan, 124
Benson, Steven (Benson murders), 136–37, 139, 141–42, 150
Bernstein, Carl, 151, 152
Blackballed (Mewshaw), 128, 133–34
Bleak House (Dickens), 245
Blues and Royals (British Army), 62
Bolling, Barbara, 39
Boo, The (Conroy), 39, 73, 256
Book of the Month Club, 102
Bowles, Paul, 4, 166
Brandeis University, 70
Breul, David, 131
Brick Baptist Church, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 261
Bridge, The (Marlette), 228
Brodsky, Joseph, 11
Broyles, William, 72
Bruce, Lenny, 25
Buchanan, Pat, 225–26
Burgess, Anthony, 4
Burns, John Horne, 101
Calvino, Italo, 11, 227
“Campari and Complexity at Center Court” (Mewshaw), 131
Capote, Truman, 98
Carter, Jimmy, 53–54
Cenci, Beatrice, 12
Center Against Adult and Adolescent Sexual Aggression, 249
Charlottesville, Virginia, 161–70, 174, 176–77, 195
Childress, Mark, 186
Citadel, 20–21, 32, 33–34, 39, 64, 163, 166, 225, 241, 243
Clark, Eleanor, 51
Clinton, Bill, 243
CNN, 107–108, 149, 247
Confessions of Nat Turner, The (Styron), 70, 71, 127
Conrack (Ritt), 25–26
Conroy, Barbara (wife), 39, 41–42, 120
Conroy, Carol Ann (sister), 146, 237
Conroy, Donald “The Great Santini” [father], 30, 31,
33, 38, 59, 60, 65–66, 73, 85, 91, 92, 93–94, 114, 144, 145, 172, 173, 175, 197, 198, 225–26, 228, 229, 255
Conroy, Frank, 10
Conroy, Jessica (daughter), 64, 238
Conroy, Lenore (wife), 15, 16, 18, 29, 42, 46–51, 52, 55, 58, 70, 83, 93, 95, 107, 108, 110, 111–12, 114, 118–19, 120–21, 123, 129, 132, 140–41, 144, 145, 147, 155, 159, 160, 166, 176, 177, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188–89, 191–97, 203–18, 219, 221, 222, 228, 229, 231, 233, 244, 245, 246, 250–51
Conroy, Megan (daughter), 15, 18, 40, 42, 63, 184, 185, 238, 240
Conroy, Melissa (daughter), 64, 184, 238
Conroy, Mike (brother), 175
Conroy, Pat
basketball, 20–21, 27–28, 45, 93, 110, 162–63, 166, 225–26, 241
Catholicism, 4, 29, 39, 240–41
The Citadel, 20–21, 32, 33–34, 39, 64, 163, 166, 225, 241, 243
death, 239–41
divorce, 4, 41, 191–97, 255, 256, 258
drinking, 41, 65, 108, 111, 118, 159, 166–67, 182, 184, 188, 191, 230
Fripp Island, South Carolina, 107, 108–12, 124, 145, 162, 166, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 191–93, 252
health concerns, 45–46, 53, 159, 188, 206, 230, 234–39, 254–55
Italy, 10–35, 39, 41, 43, 44–55, 58–60, 69–71, 73–75, 77, 78–83, 85–87, 91–94, 95–98, 102–104, 106–107, 108, 138–48, 149, 154–56, 246, 250–51, 259, 260
journals, 35–36, 91–92, 109, 225, 257–61
and money, 42, 86, 107, 185, 251–53
PEN/Faulkner Reading Series, 171–73
teaching, 32, 39–40, 183
See also Conroy, Donald “The Great Santini” [father]; Conroy, Lenore (wife); Conroy, Peggy (mother); Fleischer, Alan Fucking
Conroy, Peggy (mother), 19, 30, 31, 33, 35, 58, 59–60, 61–62, 65, 81, 83, 107, 109, 114–16, 123, 129–30, 172, 228, 229
Conroy, Susannah (daughter), 4, 48–51, 52, 54–55, 83, 118, 147, 180, 184, 186, 195–96, 203–18, 219–22, 226–27, 230–36, 238, 240, 241, 244, 245, 246, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 261
Conroy, Tom (brother), 190, 228
Conroy Center. See Pat Conroy Literary Center
Conroy v. Fleischer, 243–49
Council on Foreign Relations, 79
Courvoisie, Thomas Nugent, 39
Cowlings, A. C., 189–90
Coyote, Peter, 186
Creation (Vidal), 127
“Daddy, What Did You Do During the Class War?” (Fallows), 54
Daily Express, 102
Daily Telegraph, 105
Danner, Blythe, 62
Darkness Visible (Styron), 75–76
Daufuskie, Island, South Carolina, 25, 40
Deadspin, 226
Death of Santini, The (Conroy), 228–30
DeKalb County, Georgia, 249
Deliverance (Dickey), 74, 130
DeMatha High School, Hyattsville, Maryland, 21, 28, 32, 36, 109, 127
Dickens, Charles, 245
Dickey, James, 74–75, 77, 163
Didion, Joan, 152
Do I Owe You Something? (Mewshaw), 4–6, 200, 222
Dole, Robert, 79
Downie, Katherine, 173
Dozier, James L., 51
Dr. Bonzo. See Fleischer, Alan Fucking
Dugger, Ronnie, 72
Duluth (Vidal), 100
Dunn, Tommy (Mewshaw’s stepfather), 30, 32, 63–64, 65–66, 67–68, 82, 110
Dunne, John Gregory, 152
Ellison, Ralph, 99
Emory University, 40, 194
School of Medicine, 245
Winship Cancer Institute, 234–36
Emory University Hospital, 231
Ephron, Henry, 153
Ephron, Nora, 149–51, 152, 153
Epps, Garrett, 53, 54
Epstein, Jason, 100
Ernest F. Hollings Special Collection, University of South Carolina, 255–61
European Travel & Life (ET&L), 131–32, 146
Fallows, James, 53–54, 72, 117
Fallows, Tom, 117
Faulkner, Shannon, 243
Faulkner, William, 71, 76, 98, 101
Ferrell, Sarah, 131–32
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 26, 71, 76, 98, 149
Fiumicino Airport, Rome, Italy, 135, 136
Fleischer, Alan Fucking, 18, 42, 46–47, 57, 58, 107, 108, 109, 111–12, 114, 115, 116, 120, 133, 137–38, 143–44, 153–54, 165–66, 176, 189, 194, 243–49, 250
Fleischer, Alice, 246, 247, 249
Fleischer, Emily, 18, 46, 107, 108, 109, 116, 118, 123, 137–38, 143, 144, 153–54, 176, 184, 186, 189, 229, 247, 248–49, 251, 253, 256
Fleischer, Gregory, 18, 107, 108, 109, 116, 118
Folger Shakespeare Library, 171
Frankfurt Book Fair, 144
French Open, 62
Frey, James, 226
Fripp Island, South Carolina, 107, 108–12, 124, 145, 162, 166, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 191–93, 252
Fuentes, Carlos, 72
Fuller, Blair, 186
Galassi, Jonathan, 16
Gallery, The (Burns), 101
Gangs of New York (Scorsese), 219
Garrett, George, 53
Geller, Steve and Joan, 12–22, 24, 35, 45, 60, 71, 73, 77, 80–81, 84, 88, 105, 140, 147, 148, 243
Georgia Bulldogs, 10
Ghose, Zulfikar, 72–73
Gilardenghi, Luisa, 95
Gold, Herb, 186
Goldman, Ron, 189–90
Golino, Valeria, 168
Gone With the Wind (Mitchell), 30
Gonzaga High School, Washington, DC, 21, 225–26
Goodfellas (Scorsese), 150
Gordimer, Nadine, 11
Gore, Thomas, 96
Gould, Elliott, 155–56
Graubart, Cliff, 52, 53, 132, 145, 154–55, 192, 193, 194, 195, 203
Gray, Francine du Plessix, 11, 24–25, 75
Gray, Steven R., 249
Great Santini, The (Conroy), 10, 12, 26, 27, 30, 40
Great Santini, The [film] (Carlino), 12, 62, 109, 110, 155, 186
Greene, Graham, 4, 102, 224
Guggenheim Foundation, 9
Hannah, Daryl, 80
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 78
Harper’s Magazine, 102, 105
Harrison, Helen, 173
Harvard Crimson (newspaper), 53
Harvard University, 25, 79, 80
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 71
Heartburn (Ephron), 150
Heartburn [film] (Nichols), 150
Helprin, Mark and Lisa, 78–81, 84, 117, 120
Hemingway, Ernest, 6, 26, 54, 71, 76, 98, 122, 262
Hetzel, Fred, 28
Heyman, Art, 163
Hinckley, John, 57
Houghton Mifflin, 51, 74, 123, 128
Hughes, Howard, 98
Hughes, Ted, 251
IMG Agency, 200
International Herald Tribune, 38
International Tennis Federation, 107
Irish Republican Army (IRA), 62, 64
Israel, 80–81
Italian Open, 57, 62, 105–106, 131
Italy, 8–35, 39, 41, 43, 44–55, 56–60, 69–71, 73–75, 77, 78–94, 95–104, 106–107, 108, 112, 117–20, 122–24, 134–36, 139–48, 149, 154–56, 157–58, 219–22, 227
Red Brigades, 8, 14, 51, 57
terrorist attacks, 69–70, 135–36
Ivins, Molly, 72
Jackson, Anne, 96
John Paul II, Pope, 88, 91
Jones, James, 4, 72, 76, 98–99
Jones, Kaylie, 76
Jordan, Michael, 155
Karsch, Andy, 70, 133–34, 138
Keaton, Diane, 152
Kennedy, Jackie, 79, 96
Kennedy, John F., 87, 149
Kennedy, Ted, 70
King, Cassandra [Sandra] (wife/widow), 220, 221, 222, 223, 242
King, Martin Luther Jr., 25
King, Rodney, 187
&
nbsp; Kinnell, Galway, 146
Knox, Mickey, 95–96, 155, 156
Korean War, 104
Kovach, William, 159
Krupp, Carolyn, 5, 200–201
Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgrace on the Women’s Tennis Tour (Mewshaw), 176, 180
Lancaster, Burt, 155
Landon High School, Bethesda, Maryland, 28
Lawrence, D. H., 39
Lee, Andrea, 117
Lennon, John, 87
Levenstein, Susan, 69, 90
Levine, Philip, 163
Lewis, Sinclair, 76
Lie Down in Darkness (Styron), 71
Life for Death (Mewshaw), 12, 18, 31, 56–57
Lincoln (Vidal), 127
London, England, 64–67, 195, 200
Lords of Discipline, The (Conroy), 34, 97
Lords of Discipline, The [film] (Roddam), 64
Los Angeles Lakers, 28
Louisiana State University (LSU), 28
Love, Spencie, 53
Lowcountry Heart, A (Conroy), 227
Lowell, Robert, 163
Lowry, Malcolm, 71
LSU Press, 5–6, 222
Lui (magazine), 102
Maia, Celeste, 24
Mailer, Norman, 71, 262
Malamud, Bernard, 155
Malcolm, Janet, 113, 251
Maravich, Pete, 28
Marlette, Doug, 175, 192, 227–28
Matthiessen, Peter, 163
Maupin, Armistead, 186
McCarthy, Mary, 11
McKenna, Dave, 225–26
McKim, Mead & White (architects), 11
McNally, Tom, 255, 256
Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, 237, 239
Men’s Journal, 15
Mewshaw, Jack (Mewshaw’s biological father), 177–78
Mewshaw, Linda (Mewshaw’s wife), 3, 4, 9, 12, 17, 19, 22, 23, 26, 29, 37, 44, 47, 48–49, 50, 52–53, 54, 55, 59, 62, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 74–75, 77, 84–85, 87, 88–90, 95, 102, 104, 107, 109, 111–12, 113, 119, 122, 124, 129, 132–33, 136, 137, 141, 142, 143, 150, 151, 155, 157, 158–60, 164, 168, 171, 173, 174–75, 177, 178, 180, 187, 194, 198, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 219, 222, 227, 234, 236, 239, 260
Mewshaw, Marc [Marco] (Mewshaw’s son), 9, 13, 16, 50, 52, 55, 68, 69, 81, 83, 84, 85, 97, 109, 124, 134, 135, 136, 137, 142, 159–60, 161–62, 163–64, 174, 177, 200, 204