Pat Conroy

No one who has read Pat Conroy''s novels of family wounds and healing can fail to be moved by their emotional appeal. But Conroy is also a major contemporary American novelist who follows in the tradition of Southern fiction established by William Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe. This companion is the first book-length study of his work. It explores the recurring motifs in his fiction and his special writing talents as a prose stylist of uncommon distinction. A separate chapter for The Boo and The Water is Wide and each novel The Great Santini The Lords of Discipline The Prince of Tides and his most recent Beach Musicprovides a detailed analysis of the books and the common threads that unite all the novels.A biographical chapter draws connections between Conroy''s life and the autobiographical nature of his fiction. A chapter on genre traces Conroy''s roots in southern fiction and shows how all the novels fall into the rite-of-passage genre. Each novel is analyzed for plot structure characterization thematic elements and Conroy''s increasingly elaborate style and development as a master of the art of the novel. In addition Burns defines and applies a variety of alternative approaches to the novels to widen the reader''s perspective. A complete bibliography of Conroy''s fiction as well as selected reviews and criticism complete the work. Because of Pat Conroy''s popularity among adults and teenagers this first critical work of a major contemporary American writer is a necessary purchase by public and secondary school libraries.