Book Review - The Death of Santini

 A memoir about a healing of hearts between father and son

By Catherine Groves

In The Death of Santini, Pat Conroy brings to us a memoir that is as powerful, touching, and personal as anything hes delivered to date.

Pat Conroy has spent most of his life writing about his heart-wrenching childhood, portrayed by such characters as Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides, Jack McCall in Beach Music, and Ben Meechum in The Great Santini. Pat was the oldest child of Donald Patrick Conroy, a Marine fighter pilot, and Peg Conroy, a woman Southern to the core. He and his six siblings were moved across the South throughout their childhood from one Marine base to another. His many best-selling novels were shaped by the behavior in which he grew up: observing the devastating effects that transpired from his father upon his siblings, his mother, and himself.

It was Pats mother who nurtured his great love of literature and poetry, and he would maintain a fierce loyalty to this woman until her long fight for her life was completed. In The Death of Santini, Conroy gives us the unabridged version of his life, his siblings, and, most of all, the story of his father.

While his mother fed her childrens souls with poetry and culture, Pats father tried his best to shred the essence of all her teaching with his fighter pilot ideals, not to mention his bitter tongue and fists. Pat says, I hated my father long before I knew there was an English word for hate. Pat admits he spent most of his life trying to abolish any hint of his father that he might carry within himself, but states, Though Im very much my mothers boy, it has pained me to admit the blood of Santini rushes hard and fast in my bloodstream.

The Death of Santini is about this man Pat called Father, how he was able to cause so much hurt and pain to his family, yet, as an old man, defends Pat, who had told the world all of his fathers transgressions in his best-selling novel, The Great Santini. We witness the true meaning of blood is thicker than water, as Pat and his father finally come to terms with what they are: father and son. Pat takes us through the suicide of his brother, Tom, the journeys throughout the writing of his novels, and his own depression that came close to killing him.

Followed by a eulogy written by Pat upon the death of his father, The Death of Santini reads as tenderly, emotionally, and with as much of the prose for which hes known as any of his other great works. It is about soul searching, sorrow, the deepest of pain, and about the ability to find forgiveness and, yes, love.

The Death of Santini can be purchased at most major bookstores in e-Reader versions for Kindle and Nook.