“I have a need to bear witness to what I saw there. I want to tell you how it was. I want precision. I want a murderous, stunning truthfulness.” – from The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy
Sad day. Pat Conroy died of pancreatic cancer. He wrote books where passion and enthusiasm dripped from the pages like butter sauce from freshly sauteed shrimp. After you were finished the sensation lingered, something to savor and remember. “Music could ache and hurt, that beautiful music was a place a suffering man could hide.” ― from Beach Music by Pat Conroy.
To read Conroy was to be immersed in a world of lush poetry, flippant humor and wounded souls. He used words the way Miles Davies used his trumpet, the way Sinatra used his voice – to lighten to load from the weight of life experiences which accrue in everyone’s journey through this world.
“Walking the streets of Charleston in the late afternoons of August was like walking through gauze or inhaling damaged silk.” – Pat Conroy
Godspeed Pat. May the water be not so wide and all wounds be healed.
MarkJonesBooks 
I loved being immersed in a Pat Conroy book. Even his cookbook was an adventure. He will be so missed. God Bless
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Thank you for this wonderful post. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Pat last October at “The Pat Conroy at 70” celebration in Beaufort, SC. I found him to be disarmingly humble and gracious. And funny? He had a self-deprecating, off the cuff sense of humor that rivaled a seasoned stand-up comic. And there was something wide-eyed and child-like about him, a kind of innocence to his world-weary wisdom. There’s a FB page called “Pat Conroy at 70,” on which there is a video of his closing remarks at the conference. He reviews his entire writing career in it, and it is well worth watching.
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