Prince of Tides

 

After I finished reading his new novel, South of Broad, I went over to my bookshelf to the other Pat Conroy books. The book that I always go back to was published in 1986. The Prince of Tides.

Tom Wingo and his screwed up family. His elder brother, Luke, has a premature death. His sister, Savannah, the poet, has attempted suicide and is now in a deep depression. Tom travels to New York City to discuss his sister's problems with Dr. Susan Lowenstein, her psychiatrist.

Most of the novel is told in flashbacks as he relates incidents from his childhood to the psychiatrist. They are trying to figure out what put Savannah over the edge. Or, are they trying to figure out what's wrong with Tom? Or is it the same thing?

We know that their abusive father (now in jail) and their odd, cold, uncaring mother have something to do with it.

But there are also plenty of funny events from the past to provide some rest for the reader.

There's something that Tom keeps hidden from the doctor and us. Would the revelation of it help Savannah heal?

There is also a subplot - which figured more prominently in the movie version - in which the married Tom falls in love with Lowenstein.

I have loaned my copy of the book to a half dozen friends who all enjoyed it.

Teachers Writing About Teaching

I'm reading Pat Conroy's newest book, South of Broad, this week, but I looked back on my bookshelf at his books and remembered when I first encountered him.

It was the book, The Water Is Wide: A Memoir, which is about his teaching experience on a very poor South Carolina island in 1969.

The book came out while I was an undergrad and I read it along with a shelf full of other books about teaching by teachers as part of my prep to start my own teaching career.

Many of those books were about well-meaning, optimistic young teachers who were in frustratingly impossible classroom situations.

Conroy's isolated island community had the same students who were far behind where they should be, no funding, no real curriculum, no textbooks, racism and bonehead administrators that I found in books from To Sir, With Love to Up the Down Staircase.

All these books painted a really horrible picture of what I should expect in the classroom. But, they also offered humor and, ultimately, teachers triumphing over adversity. Conroy also realized that he didn't all he wanted to accomplish. A good lesson.

The book also became a movie called Conrack (the name his students gave him).

I don't know that I ever consciously used any of the book in a class I taught, but I bet that Pat Conroy's books have had an impact on me as a teacher.