Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| The Great Santini | 1976 |
| The Lords of Discipline | 1980 |
| The Prince of Tides | 1986 |
| Beach Music | 1995 |
| South of Broad | 2009 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| The Boo | 1970 |
| The Water Is Wide | 1972 |
| My Losing Season | 2002 |
| The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life | 2004 |
| My Reading Life | 2010 |
| The Death of Santini | 2013 |
| A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life | 2016 |
About Pat Conroy
Pat Conroy (1945 to 2016) was an American novelist and memoirist, regarded as a leading figure of late 20th-century Southern literature. His novels “The Great Santini”, “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Prince of Tides” drew on his own family and schooling, and all three were made into films.
Conroy was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the eldest of seven children of a Marine Corps fighter pilot, Colonel Donald Conroy. The family moved constantly, and he had attended 11 schools by the age of 15 before they settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he finished high school. He went on to The Citadel, the military college in Charleston, where he studied English and played basketball.
His first book, “The Boo” (1970), a collection of anecdotes about cadet life built around the assistant commandant Lt. Colonel Thomas Courvoisie, was self-published with money borrowed from a bank. After teaching in Beaufort he took a job in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, and was dismissed at the end of his first year. “The Water Is Wide” (1972), his account of that year, won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was filmed in 1974 as “Conrack” with Jon Voight.
“The Great Santini” (1976) centres on a Marine pilot, “Bull” Meecham, who dominates and terrorises his family, a character based on Conroy’s father. It was filmed in 1979 with Robert Duvall. “The Lords of Discipline” (1980) used his Citadel years and angered many fellow graduates. In “The Prince of Tides” (1986), Tom Wingo, an unemployed South Carolina teacher, travels to New York to help his sister Savannah, a poet who has attempted suicide. Barbra Streisand’s 1991 film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Conroy was a nominee for the adapted screenplay.
Later books include the novels “Beach Music” (1995) and “South of Broad” (2009), the basketball memoir “My Losing Season” (2002), “My Reading Life” (2010) and “The Death of Santini” (2013), about his relationship with his father. Conroy died of pancreatic cancer in Beaufort on 4 March 2016, aged 70. “A Lowcountry Heart” appeared the same year, and the Pat Conroy Literary Center opened in Beaufort to continue his legacy.