About the Author

Pat Conroy (1945–2016) was the author of The Boo, The Water Is Wide, The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, Beach Music, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life, My Losing Season, South of Broad, My Reading Life, and The Death of Santini.

Reviews

“A superb accomplishment, maybe the finest book Pat Conroy has written.”—The Washington Post Book World

“A wonderfully rich memoir that you don’t have to be a sports fan to love.”—Houston Chronicle

“A memoir with all the Conroy trademarks . . . Here’s ample proof that losers always tell the best stories.”—Newsweek

“In My Losing Season, Conroy opens his arms wide to embrace his difficult past and almost everyone in it.”—New York Daily News
 
“Haunting, bittersweet and as compelling as his bestselling fiction.”—Boston Herald

H"Loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher, coldhearted but clear-eyed in its understanding that life is more dilemma than game, and more trial than free pass," writes bestselling author Conroy in his first work of nonfiction since The Water Is Wide (1972). Conroy is beloved for big, passionate, compulsively readable novels propelled by the emotional jet fuel of an abusive childhood. The Lords of Discipline, The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides and Beach Music are each informed by a knowledge of pain and heartache taught to him by a Marine pilot father whose nickname was "the Great Santini." Here, in a re-creation of the losing basketball season Conroy and his team endured during his senior year at the Citadel, 1966- 1967, Conroy gives readers an intimate look at how suffering can be transformed to become a source of strength and inspiration. "I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one," he admits. Drawing on extensive interviews with his teammates, he chronicles, game by game, their talent and his sheer determination and grit. In Conroy's hands, sports writing becomes a vehicle to describe the love and devotion that can develop between young men. Toward the end of this moving work, Conroy explains that writing books became "the form that praying takes in me." But readers will see how basketball can also be a way of reaching for something finer than a winning score. What emerges is a portrait of a young man who isn't a soldier but a knight with a great and chivalrous heart. Anyone who was a son or knows a son will be touched by this book. (Oct. 15) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

"A superb accomplishment, maybe the finest book Pat Conroy has written."-The Washington Post Book World

"A wonderfully rich memoir that you don't have to be a sports fan to love."-Houston Chronicle

"A memoir with all the Conroy trademarks . . . Here's ample proof that losers always tell the best stories."-Newsweek

"In My Losing Season, Conroy opens his arms wide to embrace his difficult past and almost everyone in it."-New York Daily News

"Haunting, bittersweet and as compelling as his bestselling fiction."-Boston Herald