The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son by Pat Conroy Page A

subject matter. The days passed slowly, but inexorably, like a firing squad assembling at dawn. I could not bear to think that I wrote a five-hundred-page novel just because I needed to love my father. It never occurred to me that I was born with a need to love my dad. It seemed like a madman’s fantasy that my father could ever bring himself to love me. Then the book was published, and my problems really began.

CHAPTER 5 •
Publication of
The Great Santini
    When the postman delivered the first ten copies of
The Great Santini
to my house on Briarcliff Road, I knew that there was no escape in secrecy or vagueness or distortion. Houghton Mifflin was shipping my book to stores all across the country, and I’d soon be facing the judgment of family and critics. When the verdict was in, I far preferred the critics.
    My father raced over from his aerie in the Darlington apartments. I had rarely seen him so animated. He shouted with joy when I handed him the book and he saw the title of my first novel.
    “My God, son, you’ve named the book after me. What an honor.”
    “Dad, you might want to read the book before you start talking about it,” I said, horrified that I had even kept the name of the book from my father. He opened the book and started thumbing his way through its pages, excitable and happy-faced as a King Charles pup.
    “So, you dedicated this book to me and your mother.” Suddenly moved, he added, “This might be the best day of my life.”
    At first, I had dedicated it to my mother alone, phrasing it, “This book is dedicated to Frances ‘Peggy’ Conroy, the grandest of mothers and teachers.” When I wrote the dedication, I went to Ellen Harper’s dress shop and asked Ellen to type it for me. She put on her reading glasses and started typing. I could feel her irritation at me. She was the mother of my best friend in high school and she’d been like a motherto me since I first walked into her house. She had exercised an editorial privilege that I had not authorized, but she was giving me a lesson I would long remember. Ellen had added the following words: “And to Colonel Donald Conroy, U.S.M.C. Ret., the grandest of fathers and Marine aviators.”
    “I thought I raised you right,” Ellen said. “Wipe that frown off your face. I taught you to do the right thing, boy, to take the high road. Now get! Mrs. Aimar has come in to shop for a hat.”
    I left the words in and will be grateful to Sarah Ellen Harper until I draw my last breath. It was the only armor I took going into the wars that would soon erupt on both sides of the family. But the center of conflict was standing in my living room holding a novel I had written describing my withering contempt of him. It was an awful and existential moment in a young writer’s life. My coming-of-age novel was taking on the grotesque trappings of a public beheading. My father danced down the driveway to his yellow ’68 Volkswagen convertible I had given him as a retirement gift. He was buoyant while I was worried. When he drove off, I knew trouble lay ahead.
    In two hours, the phone rang and I picked it up, knowing it would be my father.
    “Why do you hate me, son?” he asked. “Just why do you hate me so goddamn much?”
    “Keep reading, Dad; please keep reading. You’ve got to get to the last line. It’s all in the last line.”
    “It’s the shittiest book I’ve ever read,” Dad said. “You ain’t worth a crap as a writer. That’s my humble opinion.”
    “Thanks, Dad. Just keep reading the book. Finish it.”
    Two hours later Dad called again. This time he was sobbing so badly I couldn’t understand a word he was trying to say. He began hiccuping, then blubbering again, and finally broke into a high-pitched wail of indiscriminate anguish. The hardest, toughest man I had met in the Marine Corps roared out in unarticulated pain because of words I had hurled against him. Finally, he gained control over himself and whimpered, “What’s my