Pat Conroy's THE DEATH OF SANTINI

I  was lucky enough to score an ARC of  THE DEATH OF SANTINI by Pat Conroy. 

Wow.

Just.
Wow.

Nobody, but NO BODY, writes like Conroy.

I have sung his praises over the years here at Meanderings and Muses.  You can find several posts I've written about him - each one more expansive than the last.

I don't care if he's writing fiction, narrative non-fiction, essays or recipes - he is the best.

And THE DEATH OF SANTINI is the book many of us have been waiting for.

I don't know how he survives opening himself up the way he does as he writes with such brutal honesty.  And through the unimaginable hurt comes that outrageously irreverent sense of humor that will make you laugh out loud even as you're wiping away the tears.

Pure.  Honest.  Perfectly written.

Conroy at his best -

AND -

If I didn't already love him, I would after reading this passage  - ". . . Yes, it was that fruitful winter that I made the decision to never write a critical dismissal of the works of another brother or sister writer, and I've lived up to that promise to myself. No writer has suffered over morning coffee because of the savagery of my review of his or her latest book, and no one ever will."


That, my friends, equals class backed up, I believe, by a huge capacity for kindness.