The Lost Prince Read online

  Pat’s diary brought it all back—his rambunctiousness, his insatiable appetite for fun. He was like a St. Bernard puppy that hadn’t been housebroken—brimming with affection, yet always in danger of smashing furniture. Most of his faults, I decided, were ones of excess. Even his wobbles as an author were mostly the result of trying too hard to walk on a high wire. A line from one of his favorite novels, Madame Bovary, summed up Pat’s sense that: “Human speech is a cracked kettle on which we tap out crude rhythms for bears to dance to while we long to make music that will melt the stars.”

  I LEFT THE LIBRARY AND set out for the South Carolina coast. My trip to the Low Country had about it the sensation of a four-hour downhill glide. Plenty of time to contemplate what Susannah had said: At the end of his life I had been in Pat’s thoughts and in his heart. Again I pictured his heart as a chambered nautilus with a counter-shaded shell. From above, its dark side blended invisibly with the ocean’s floor. From below, its bright side couldn’t be distinguished from sunlight slanting through seawater. Pat hadn’t chosen this camouflage any more than he had chosen his blue eyes. It was the natural adaptation of a battered child anxious to hide in plain sight and protect himself in all directions.

  WHEN I HEARD THAT PAT had chosen to be buried in a Gullah cemetery belonging to the Brick Baptist Church on St. Helena Island, I envisioned a bosky dell overarched by palms and live oaks, and crowded with moss-covered tombs. Instead, his stone stands on parched sandy soil, tufted with coarse weeds. The surrounding chain-link fence suggests a farmer’s stockyard, and across the road, dry-docked boats and stacks of railroad ties bake in the sun smelling of creosote.

  The inscription on Pat’s tombstone reads, “My wound is geography, but it is also my anchor, my port of call.” A border of pinecones is pressed into the ground around his grave, framing mementoes from devoted fans. Coins of various currencies, a Hong Kong $10 bill, lyrical poems and earnest personal notes in clear plastic jackets, conch shells, oyster shells, carnival beads, ballpoint pens, Citadel souvenirs, a softball, a sand dollar, a small basketball, and a miniature bottle of bourbon—they looked to me like the flotsam of a lifetime tossed up in his turbulent wake.

  As I paused there, a white-haired man older in appearance than his seventy-three years, I might have been reflecting on my own mortality. But I was actually fumbling to make sense of Pat’s life and death. There floated to mind a few lines from Norman Mailer’s eulogy for Ernest Hemingway. In a suicide that had shaken the faith of a whole generation, Papa had shoved a shotgun into his mouth and blown off the back of his head. In some critics’ estimation, this violated his famous code of stoic courage. But Mailer, not known for his generosity to competitors, commented, “The truth of [Hemingway’s] long odyssey is that he struggled with his cowardice and against a secret lust to suicide all his life, that his inner landscape was a nightmare, and he spent his nights wrestling with the gods. It may even be that the final judgment on his work may come to the notion that what he failed to do was tragic, but what he accomplished was heroic, for it is possible he carried a weight of anxiety within him from day to day which would have suffocated any man smaller than himself.”

  In my opinion, Pat Conroy carried within himself no secret lust to suicide or deeply buried cowardice. Rather, his self-destructive impulses were right on the surface, and he openly depicted the nightmare of his inner landscape. The great weight of anxiety that oppressed him was that no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t escape his childhood. His worst fear, I believe, was that he would kill somebody else. Or almost as bad, that he would beat his children as savagely as he had been beaten. That he never did so represented, in my opinion, an achievement as significant as any in his career.

  I’ve never managed to stay mad at Pat Conroy, no more than I have ceased wishing he were still in my life. This despite the fact that, to borrow from Saul Bellow, his “pathologic element could be missed only by those who were laughing too hard to look.” He had hurt me. But who that ever breathed air has not hurt somebody or never been hurt himself? He was my friend, and I never had a better one. But among my regrets is that I didn’t get a chance to ask Pat this question: Who ever loved him more than I did?

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing is a solitary art, an act of willful isolation. Or so authors often lament. But in fact every book is a collaborative effort. I’d like to thank my agent, Michael Carlisle, and my editor, Jack Shoemaker. Then, too, I’m indebted to a list of friends who read The Lost Prince in its earlier incarnations. A tip of the hat to Tom Carney, Zach Leader, Jonathan Levi, Andy Karsch, Jonathan Galassi, my sons Sean and Marc, and Lucinda Hahn, who went further and suggested substantial editorial improvements. Finally I’d like to thank Lenore and Susannah Conroy for agreeing to be interviewed, and Pat Conroy’s widow and literary executor, Cassandra King, for her permission to quote from his letters, emails, and diaries.

  And again, as always, boundless gratitude to my wife, Linda, for her patience and cheerful support.

  INDEX

  Academy Awards, 70

  Agnos, Art, 186

  AIDS, 159, 183

  Alioto, Joe, 186

  American Academy in Rome, 9, 11–12, 44, 75, 78–79, 85, 95, 120, 146

  American Booksellers Association, 6, 59–60

  Amis, Martin, 98

  “Anatomy of a Divorce” (Conroy), 41

  Andersen-Schiess, Gabriela, 124–25

  Antrim, Harry, 84

  AP. See Associated Press (AP)

  Ashe, Arthur, 106

  Associated Press (AP), 107–108, 135

  Atheneum Books, 126, 128–29

  Atlanta, Georgia, 10, 40, 45–47, 52, 53, 107, 108, 110, 132, 137, 147, 154, 157, 159, 160, 231, 244, 246, 250

  Atlanta Constitution, 154, 159

  Atlanta Magazine, 41

  Atlantic Monthly, 54

  Auchincloss, Hugh D., 96

  Bach, Julian, 73–74, 80

  Baye, Nathalie, 156

  BBC, 106, 124

  Beach Music (Conroy), 95, 97, 132, 136, 148, 153, 154, 158, 162, 166, 175, 176, 188, 195, 233, 253

  Beaufort, South Carolina, 27, 32, 39, 109, 110, 183, 233, 236, 239, 241, 242, 243

  Belk, Tim, 159, 182–84, 185, 189

  Bellow, Saul, 99, 263

  Bennett, William, 225

  Benoit, Joan, 124

  Benson, Steven (Benson murders), 136–37, 139, 141–42, 150

  Bernstein, Carl, 151, 152

  Blackballed (Mewshaw), 128, 133–34

  Bleak House (Dickens), 245

  Blues and Royals (British Army), 62

  Bolling, Barbara, 39

  Boo, The (Conroy), 39, 73, 256

  Book of the Month Club, 102

  Bowles, Paul, 4, 166

  Brandeis University, 70

  Breul, David, 131

  Brick Baptist Church, St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 261

  Bridge, The (Marlette), 228

  Brodsky, Joseph, 11

  Broyles, William, 72

  Bruce, Lenny, 25

  Buchanan, Pat, 225–26

  Burgess, Anthony, 4

  Burns, John Horne, 101

  Calvino, Italo, 11, 227

  “Campari and Complexity at Center Court” (Mewshaw), 131

  Capote, Truman, 98

  Carter, Jimmy, 53–54

  Cenci, Beatrice, 12

  Center Against Adult and Adolescent Sexual Aggression, 249

  Charlottesville, Virginia, 161–70, 174, 176–77, 195

  Childress, Mark, 186

  Citadel, 20–21, 32, 33–34, 39, 64, 163, 166, 225, 241, 243

  Clark, Eleanor, 51

  Clinton, Bill, 243

  CNN, 107–108, 149, 247

  Confessions of Nat Turner, The (Styron), 70, 71, 127

  Conrack (Ritt), 25–26

  Conroy, Barbara (wife), 39, 41–42, 120

  Conroy, Carol Ann (sister), 146, 237

  Conroy, Donald “The Great Santini” [father], 30, 31,
33, 38, 59, 60, 65–66, 73, 85, 91, 92, 93–94, 114, 144, 145, 172, 173, 175, 197, 198, 225–26, 228, 229, 255

  Conroy, Frank, 10

  Conroy, Jessica (daughter), 64, 238

  Conroy, Lenore (wife), 15, 16, 18, 29, 42, 46–51, 52, 55, 58, 70, 83, 93, 95, 107, 108, 110, 111–12, 114, 118–19, 120–21, 123, 129, 132, 140–41, 144, 145, 147, 155, 159, 160, 166, 176, 177, 181, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188–89, 191–97, 203–18, 219, 221, 222, 228, 229, 231, 233, 244, 245, 246, 250–51

  Conroy, Megan (daughter), 15, 18, 40, 42, 63, 184, 185, 238, 240

  Conroy, Melissa (daughter), 64, 184, 238

  Conroy, Mike (brother), 175

  Conroy, Pat

  basketball, 20–21, 27–28, 45, 93, 110, 162–63, 166, 225–26, 241

  Catholicism, 4, 29, 39, 240–41

  The Citadel, 20–21, 32, 33–34, 39, 64, 163, 166, 225, 241, 243

  death, 239–41

  divorce, 4, 41, 191–97, 255, 256, 258

  drinking, 41, 65, 108, 111, 118, 159, 166–67, 182, 184, 188, 191, 230

  Fripp Island, South Carolina, 107, 108–12, 124, 145, 162, 166, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 191–93, 252

  health concerns, 45–46, 53, 159, 188, 206, 230, 234–39, 254–55

  Italy, 10–35, 39, 41, 43, 44–55, 58–60, 69–71, 73–75, 77, 78–83, 85–87, 91–94, 95–98, 102–104, 106–107, 108, 138–48, 149, 154–56, 246, 250–51, 259, 260

  journals, 35–36, 91–92, 109, 225, 257–61

  and money, 42, 86, 107, 185, 251–53

  PEN/Faulkner Reading Series, 171–73

  teaching, 32, 39–40, 183

  See also Conroy, Donald “The Great Santini” [father]; Conroy, Lenore (wife); Conroy, Peggy (mother); Fleischer, Alan Fucking

  Conroy, Peggy (mother), 19, 30, 31, 33, 35, 58, 59–60, 61–62, 65, 81, 83, 107, 109, 114–16, 123, 129–30, 172, 228, 229

  Conroy, Susannah (daughter), 4, 48–51, 52, 54–55, 83, 118, 147, 180, 184, 186, 195–96, 203–18, 219–22, 226–27, 230–36, 238, 240, 241, 244, 245, 246, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 261

  Conroy, Tom (brother), 190, 228

  Conroy Center. See Pat Conroy Literary Center

  Conroy v. Fleischer, 243–49

  Council on Foreign Relations, 79

  Courvoisie, Thomas Nugent, 39

  Cowlings, A. C., 189–90

  Coyote, Peter, 186

  Creation (Vidal), 127

  “Daddy, What Did You Do During the Class War?” (Fallows), 54

  Daily Express, 102

  Daily Telegraph, 105

  Danner, Blythe, 62

  Darkness Visible (Styron), 75–76

  Daufuskie, Island, South Carolina, 25, 40

  Deadspin, 226

  Death of Santini, The (Conroy), 228–30

  DeKalb County, Georgia, 249

  Deliverance (Dickey), 74, 130

  DeMatha High School, Hyattsville, Maryland, 21, 28, 32, 36, 109, 127

  Dickens, Charles, 245

  Dickey, James, 74–75, 77, 163

  Didion, Joan, 152

  Do I Owe You Something? (Mewshaw), 4–6, 200, 222

  Dole, Robert, 79

  Downie, Katherine, 173

  Dozier, James L., 51

  Dr. Bonzo. See Fleischer, Alan Fucking

  Dugger, Ronnie, 72

  Duluth (Vidal), 100

  Dunn, Tommy (Mewshaw’s stepfather), 30, 32, 63–64, 65–66, 67–68, 82, 110

  Dunne, John Gregory, 152

  Ellison, Ralph, 99

  Emory University, 40, 194

  School of Medicine, 245

  Winship Cancer Institute, 234–36

  Emory University Hospital, 231

  Ephron, Henry, 153

  Ephron, Nora, 149–51, 152, 153

  Epps, Garrett, 53, 54

  Epstein, Jason, 100

  Ernest F. Hollings Special Collection, University of South Carolina, 255–61

  European Travel & Life (ET&L), 131–32, 146

  Fallows, James, 53–54, 72, 117

  Fallows, Tom, 117

  Faulkner, Shannon, 243

  Faulkner, William, 71, 76, 98, 101

  Ferrell, Sarah, 131–32

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 26, 71, 76, 98, 149

  Fiumicino Airport, Rome, Italy, 135, 136

  Fleischer, Alan Fucking, 18, 42, 46–47, 57, 58, 107, 108, 109, 111–12, 114, 115, 116, 120, 133, 137–38, 143–44, 153–54, 165–66, 176, 189, 194, 243–49, 250

  Fleischer, Alice, 246, 247, 249

  Fleischer, Emily, 18, 46, 107, 108, 109, 116, 118, 123, 137–38, 143, 144, 153–54, 176, 184, 186, 189, 229, 247, 248–49, 251, 253, 256

  Fleischer, Gregory, 18, 107, 108, 109, 116, 118

  Folger Shakespeare Library, 171

  Frankfurt Book Fair, 144

  French Open, 62

  Frey, James, 226

  Fripp Island, South Carolina, 107, 108–12, 124, 145, 162, 166, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 191–93, 252

  Fuentes, Carlos, 72

  Fuller, Blair, 186

  Galassi, Jonathan, 16

  Gallery, The (Burns), 101

  Gangs of New York (Scorsese), 219

  Garrett, George, 53

  Geller, Steve and Joan, 12–22, 24, 35, 45, 60, 71, 73, 77, 80–81, 84, 88, 105, 140, 147, 148, 243

  Georgia Bulldogs, 10

  Ghose, Zulfikar, 72–73

  Gilardenghi, Luisa, 95

  Gold, Herb, 186

  Goldman, Ron, 189–90

  Golino, Valeria, 168

  Gone With the Wind (Mitchell), 30

  Gonzaga High School, Washington, DC, 21, 225–26

  Goodfellas (Scorsese), 150

  Gordimer, Nadine, 11

  Gore, Thomas, 96

  Gould, Elliott, 155–56

  Graubart, Cliff, 52, 53, 132, 145, 154–55, 192, 193, 194, 195, 203

  Gray, Francine du Plessix, 11, 24–25, 75

  Gray, Steven R., 249

  Great Santini, The (Conroy), 10, 12, 26, 27, 30, 40

  Great Santini, The [film] (Carlino), 12, 62, 109, 110, 155, 186

  Greene, Graham, 4, 102, 224

  Guggenheim Foundation, 9

  Hannah, Daryl, 80

  Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 78

  Harper’s Magazine, 102, 105

  Harrison, Helen, 173

  Harvard Crimson (newspaper), 53

  Harvard University, 25, 79, 80

  Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 71

  Heartburn (Ephron), 150

  Heartburn [film] (Nichols), 150

  Helprin, Mark and Lisa, 78–81, 84, 117, 120

  Hemingway, Ernest, 6, 26, 54, 71, 76, 98, 122, 262

  Hetzel, Fred, 28

  Heyman, Art, 163

  Hinckley, John, 57

  Houghton Mifflin, 51, 74, 123, 128

  Hughes, Howard, 98

  Hughes, Ted, 251

  IMG Agency, 200

  International Herald Tribune, 38

  International Tennis Federation, 107

  Irish Republican Army (IRA), 62, 64

  Israel, 80–81

  Italian Open, 57, 62, 105–106, 131

  Italy, 8–35, 39, 41, 43, 44–55, 56–60, 69–71, 73–75, 77, 78–94, 95–104, 106–107, 108, 112, 117–20, 122–24, 134–36, 139–48, 149, 154–56, 157–58, 219–22, 227

  Red Brigades, 8, 14, 51, 57

  terrorist attacks, 69–70, 135–36

  Ivins, Molly, 72

  Jackson, Anne, 96

  John Paul II, Pope, 88, 91

  Jones, James, 4, 72, 76, 98–99

  Jones, Kaylie, 76

  Jordan, Michael, 155

  Karsch, Andy, 70, 133–34, 138

  Keaton, Diane, 152

  Kennedy, Jackie, 79, 96

  Kennedy, John F., 87, 149

  Kennedy, Ted, 70

  King, Cassandra [Sandra] (wife/widow), 220, 221, 222, 223, 242

  King, Martin Luther Jr., 25

  King, Rodney, 187

&
nbsp; Kinnell, Galway, 146

  Knox, Mickey, 95–96, 155, 156

  Korean War, 104

  Kovach, William, 159

  Krupp, Carolyn, 5, 200–201

  Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgrace on the Women’s Tennis Tour (Mewshaw), 176, 180

  Lancaster, Burt, 155

  Landon High School, Bethesda, Maryland, 28

  Lawrence, D. H., 39

  Lee, Andrea, 117

  Lennon, John, 87

  Levenstein, Susan, 69, 90

  Levine, Philip, 163

  Lewis, Sinclair, 76

  Lie Down in Darkness (Styron), 71

  Life for Death (Mewshaw), 12, 18, 31, 56–57

  Lincoln (Vidal), 127

  London, England, 64–67, 195, 200

  Lords of Discipline, The (Conroy), 34, 97

  Lords of Discipline, The [film] (Roddam), 64

  Los Angeles Lakers, 28

  Louisiana State University (LSU), 28

  Love, Spencie, 53

  Lowcountry Heart, A (Conroy), 227

  Lowell, Robert, 163

  Lowry, Malcolm, 71

  LSU Press, 5–6, 222

  Lui (magazine), 102

  Maia, Celeste, 24

  Mailer, Norman, 71, 262

  Malamud, Bernard, 155

  Malcolm, Janet, 113, 251

  Maravich, Pete, 28

  Marlette, Doug, 175, 192, 227–28

  Matthiessen, Peter, 163

  Maupin, Armistead, 186

  McCarthy, Mary, 11

  McKenna, Dave, 225–26

  McKim, Mead & White (architects), 11

  McNally, Tom, 255, 256

  Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital, 237, 239

  Men’s Journal, 15

  Mewshaw, Jack (Mewshaw’s biological father), 177–78

  Mewshaw, Linda (Mewshaw’s wife), 3, 4, 9, 12, 17, 19, 22, 23, 26, 29, 37, 44, 47, 48–49, 50, 52–53, 54, 55, 59, 62, 64, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 74–75, 77, 84–85, 87, 88–90, 95, 102, 104, 107, 109, 111–12, 113, 119, 122, 124, 129, 132–33, 136, 137, 141, 142, 143, 150, 151, 155, 157, 158–60, 164, 168, 171, 173, 174–75, 177, 178, 180, 187, 194, 198, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 219, 222, 227, 234, 236, 239, 260

  Mewshaw, Marc [Marco] (Mewshaw’s son), 9, 13, 16, 50, 52, 55, 68, 69, 81, 83, 84, 85, 97, 109, 124, 134, 135, 136, 137, 142, 159–60, 161–62, 163–64, 174, 177, 200, 204