Attendees enjoyed inspiring words from an acclaimed novelist during the Friends of the Gilmer Library’s (FOGL) annual meeting, which was held at the library last week.
Novelist Cassandra King Conroy was the event’s guest speaker. King Conroy, who lives in South Carolina, said she and local resident Carol Harris have been friends for years, which led her to speak here.
“This is my favorite speaking venue, going to a library,” said King Conroy. “Where else is better? You know you’re among book lovers if you’re at a library. I’m one of these people that the library is like a sacred space to me.”
The author of such novels as “Moonrise,” “The Same Sweet Girls” and “The Sunday Wife,” King Conroy focused her lecture on the subject of her latest book, “Tell Me a Story.” The memoir is about her life with novelist Pat Conroy, author of “The Prince of Tides,” “The Water is Wide” and “Beach Music.” The two were married from 1998 until 2016, when Conroy passed away after battling pancreatic cancer.
“I like to point out the title. It’s the only title I would have considered for this book. ‘Tell Me a Story’ says more about Pat than anything I know,” King Conroy said. “It was one of his favorite sayings. I see quotes where he said, ‘Tell me a story are some of the most beautiful words in the English language.’ And how true it is. The power of books to tell stories and change lives is amazing.”
King Conroy told numerous stories about her late husband, his work, his sense of humor amongst tragedy and his legacy as a trailblazing author. The two first met, appropriately enough, at a 1995 library function where Pat was speaking.
“He handled everything with humor,” she said. “If you’ve read his books, you know you could be laughing on one page and crying on the next.”
King Conroy said several of Pat’s books, including “The Water is Wide” and “Lords of Discipline” were adapted as screenplays for movies, but it was “The Prince of Tides” that “cemented his place in the literary world.” The novel, which deals with the toll of mental illness and family violence, was the basis for the award-winning 1991 film of the same name starring Nick Nolte and Barbara Streisand. Pat also cowrote the movie’s screenplay.
The book was among numerous examples of Pat tackling difficult and personal subjects in his writing, King Conroy noted. “(In ‘The Prince of Tides’) he wrote primarily about his sister. He had a sister and brother who suffered from mental illness,” she said.
Family violence, then still somewhat of a taboo subject, was recounted from a personal viewpoint in Pat’s 1976 novel “The Great Santini.” The book, which the author based on his own childhood, is centered around the love-hate relationship between a military father and his son, who are often at odds.
“In some ways, what he fought against his whole career was abuse of different forms. He was very brave in his writing. We were together for a while before I came to understand that, because of his writing, he had become quite a controversial person,” King Conroy said. “I had admired him as a writer (before we met), but I had not really appreciated how much of an innovator he was with his books. Now you can’t walk into a library or bookstore, throw a rock and not hit a book that has something to do with domestic abuse or violence. But, when Pat wrote his first books, he was one of the first to do that.”
King Conroy said her husband often paid a price for his candor as an author.
“He said (‘The Great Santini’) was like he dropped a bomb in the middle of his family. He had relatives who never spoke to him after that, and his father didn’t for a while,” she added. “Pat would often say he had a nervous breakdown with each book he wrote. Considering the subject matter of some of his books, I certainly understood that.”
The fee for King Conroy’s appearance will benefit the Pat Conroy Literary Center in Beaufort, S.C.
“It’s a nonprofit organization that promotes the literary arts and does a lot of things with schoolkids,” she said.
The meeting also included a summary of the past year’s FOGL fundraising efforts. The group of local library boosters was able to raise just over $13,000 through various channels. Everything raised by FOGL goes to support the Gilmer library’s various programs, materials and activities, noted Nan Flickinger, outgoing FOGL president.
Of that total amount raised, almost $3,500 came from sales at The Bookshelf, a used book shop maintained by FOGL members, while $3,600 came from Amazon sales and just over $2,500 from Bookshelf “drop box” purchases made outside the shop’s normal operating hours.
The group also named its officers for the new fiscal year with Barbara Dunson becoming the new president, Becky Oliver vice president, Melinda Cowan secretary and Kathy Levine treasurer.