How Pat Conroy's dad helped his writing career

“One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family,” Mr. Conroy told the writer John Berendt for a Vanity Fair profile in 1995. “I could not have been born into a better one.” He added: “I don’t have to look very far for melodrama. It’s all right there.”

William Grimes, Pat Conroy, Author of ‘The Prince of Tides’ and ‘The Great Santini,’ Dies at 70, N.Y. Times, March 5, 2016.

Donald Conroy, the father known to his children as Godzilla, was a special case. Initially enraged by his portrayal in “The Great Santini,” he came to relish the role. . . .

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Literary fame did not win Mr. Conroy any points with his father. When asked by an Atlanta magazine to identify who read his son’s books, the elder Mr. Conroy replied, “That’s easy: psychiatrists, homosexuals, extreme liberals and women.”

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