Let us all give thanks to Peg Conroy. The mother of Southern writer Pat Conroy gave him the gift of reading as a child, a love for books and words and writing.
He pays tribute to her in the first chapter — and really throughout — his new memoir, My Reading Life, recalling how she introduced him to Gone With the Wind when he was five and living in Atlanta, and took him and his siblings to the downtown Orlando library the year he was 10 and his military pilot father (“The Great Santini’’) was overseas. The Conroys lived in Orlando near their Harper family relatives.
“To my mother,’’ he writes, “a library was a palace of desire masquerading in a wilderness of books.’’ He credits her and Margaret Mitchell’s epic for his becoming a Southern novelist.
Readers of Conroy’s novels, including The Prince of Tides and Beach Music, are already familiar with their autobiographical underpinnings and Conroy’s word-drunk prose. He mines much of the same territory here, but specifically relates how the books he read, and the teachers and mentors who recommended them, shaped his life as a writer. The resulting stories are eloquent and entertaining, at times humorous, always heartfelt.
“I take it as an article of faith that the novels I’ve loved will live inside me forever,’’ he proclaims, and goes on to expound on Anna Karenina and The Great Gatsby, the works of Thomas Wolfe and James Dickey, the poetry he reads daily. He writes to explain his own life; he reads to lose himself in the lives of others. “I find myself happiest in the middle of a book in which I forget that I am reading.’’
People often talk about “gift books’’ for the holidays, thinking of those handsome tomes that look so lovely on the coffee-table. Well and good, but Conroy’s small book, with its celebratory stories of books and book people, reminds us that reading is the real gift.
Open Book: I received an advance readers copy of Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life (Nan Talese/Doubleday) as part of a web promotion. If you ever get a chance to hear Conroy spin his stories in person, count yourself lucky. Talking to Pat about books and writing, and listening to him speak at various literary events over the years, are among the highlights of my journalism career.
On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever 
Nancy, I once had the pleasure of seeing Pat Conroy and Doug Marlette “interview” each other, at the North Carolina Book Festival in Durham. And along with Conroy, my other two favorite writers to listen to are Terry Kay and Ferrol Sams. The three of them are Shakespearean in their eloquence, bluster and bombast.
I so agree. Clyde Edgerton is another good tale-teller. I miss Marlette.
MK, have good writing trip to Southern Pines. And e-mail me the name of the character for next book. Good blog post on how you “cook” your books! Names are important ingredients.
Nancy: I just recommended Conroy’s “My Losing Season” to Jackson, who was scanning our bookshelves in search of a new book to read. I didn’ t succeed — he picked up a Tom Clancy instead — but I’m working on him. I think he’ll love it.
Must confess to buying this on Audible a few days ago, because I could not resist the lure of the fact that he’s reading it. I travel 40 minutes each way to my office, three days a week. Who better to keep me company?
I was thrilled to see you had reviewed Pat’s lovely book today. He is my favorite writer of all time. I am pea green with envy that you have heard him speak. I am hoping to get tickets to hear him speak at the MBF in a couple weeks. You are so right; is the perfect gift book!