A death in the family

Families. Spouse, mother, father, children, siblings – a tough road. When the family is especially dysfunctional, it can be unbearable. Pat Conroy, through his ability to make words bleed, has brought us with him on his journey with his abusive father – The Great Santini and now, The Death of Santini.

There were so many situations with his father that we could only discuss a few of them at our monthly meeting. We literally ran late into the night. We tend to read fiction not memoirs or autobiographies.  But they give us more to talk about because it’s a real story. 

Without talking about specific situations, our book club discussed how each of Pat’s siblings and his mother absorbed the abuse and how they reacted to it afterwards. All of them unique in their own pain and the way they handled it. His poor brother was broken by it. They all were.

It seemed to us that Pat Conroy never lost hope that someday his father would change. In the end, the demon wasn’t purged only tempered.

Our book club members have enjoyed every Pat Conroy novel.  The Prince of Tides and Beach Music were our favorites. We read The Prince of Tides before I started writing small reviews on the website. We even enjoyed the movies.  Pat gives book clubs plenty to discuss.

Enjoy!

Rating: 8.5

Photo by Mike Scheid on Unsplash

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