Thankful for Pat

 On this Thursday afternoon, the sun has decided to peep out, and I began to stir.
 Normally I would leave my book reading until the end of the month, so I can fill you up, as books have filled me.
  This will not wait.
  So very thankful for Pat Conroy and his screwed up family. ( Note in my blog title, I use just his first name, I think we are cousins, or very close friends)
  I know in the past I have written about Pat, his way with language, reminds me of the smell of coffee in the morning. That first sip, warm java hitting your stomach, and then you breathe. Pat Conroy is one of our southern best. He is sweet tea with extra lemon, and a shot of white lightning.
 I do not under any circumstances understand how he has survived growing up, but I think writing saved him. At least it gave him some rope.
  The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son, is charming and undone.Exquisite prose, that comes from a hideous start.
 It helps if you have read his other books, you will understand his relationship with his family and how his life is the foundation of his work. He also refers to his family history as a wound, that he remembers even from diapers. Fascinating horror that produces this master writer.
  He describes his parents marriage as composed of terror and great violence, storm-tossed and seasoned with all the terrible salts of pain. ( He is a genius, a broken genius with words)
 Pat tells of love in his family that came to them veiled in disturbance-they had to learn it the hard way, cutting away the spoilage like bruises on a pear. ( The poet in him speaks volumes)
 When talking about his mom, whom he loved deeply, he said, "She could camouflage the blade of beauty in the folds of a matadors red cape." What a way to describe a women who could use silence to declaw her husband, her ungovernable husband! ( These are his words, not mine. I wish they were mine!)
 Here are a few more words about his mom.
      She lacked the quiet confidence that comes from the leisure and gracefulness of coming up right. Fashion and style were not tests you could study for. Your birthplace is your destiny and it hunts you down in whatever cotillion you've run to hide in-it is a bad tattoo that is defining, accurate, and irremovable.
   His mom lived in southern shame, and married a mean man. Their family was a vessel of pure madness(still his words, all of these are his words) The Depression pollinated every corner of her personality with the dark ash of insecurity she would take to her grave.( lord have mercy)
  Hard to believe that the book is Mr. Conroys goodbye to his demons. He lays out the family tree, and all of its badly lit crazy people, and forgives and closes those chapters.
  His father, whom I met at a book signing years ago, was the most horrible parent. He was a Marine fighter pilot, need I say more. Seriously these children should have gone to foster homes, years ago, but that was back in the day, where all was swept under the rugs. Mental illness, beatings, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, all lay under the rugs in many households. The Conroys, are in a league of their own.
  From the Chicago Irish Catholic, to the Alabama snake handlers, this combo, this DNA was toxic and yet..
Pat Conroy's words.
   He dedicated this book to his brothers and sisters, who knew how bad it really was.
 Out of the pain, comes......its all about choices.
  Thankful for my Pat, and his stories.