Most across the country. There are certain cases where it is recommended, and according to laws and medical boards that has to be a specific patient board and a medical board the best review the case. The hospital has to donate the time and the services, the equipment. A doctor has to donate his time. No one gets paid for it. Its only used in extreme cases. And i spoke to a friend who is a neurosurgeon, and he has done it twice in his career, and it was for people who have been institutionalized basically in straight jackets for their whole lives in psychiatric hospitals. This particular surgery is incredibly effective for a particular type of mental illness. So the two patients he told me about were able to leave the psychiatric hospital, get high school college, masters degrees and live in the thing that lives. So it does happen it is with great, great care, and its not very often. [inaudible] special needs because of rosemary, because he knew that she and the family, that was like presented, had special needs. Eileen would probably note more about this than me but i think unesco president kennedy i think eunice got the president to Pay Attention to this issue. Kate, id like to salute your beautiful, fantastic book. Thank you. Besides the problem with rosemary, this could make awareness of this book to many other problems in the united states. So i respect and thank you so much, kate. Thank you so much applaud b but. [applause] if there isnt anything else, no other questions, then we are thrilled that you can, delighted that you participated, and our offer will be outside signing books for you. Thank you, eileen. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv covers hundreds of other programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events we will be attending this week. And now from the southern festival of books held every year in nashville, Author Pat Conroy is joined in conversation by Catherine Seltzer, author of a recent book about the novelist, understanding pat conroy. Welcome can hear me okay . Welcome to the 27 i dont know how to turn it up. Is that better . Okay, good. Welcome to the 27th annual southern festival of books. We appreciate you being here so very much. And without you it just wouldnt be any fun at all. But it is free to the public, and if youd like to go by and make the donation at the main booth thats on the plaza, we would just love it. And no donation is too small. Love to have you come by and visit regardless. We will close approximately five minutes to the hour, and pat conroy will be signing, along with Catherine Seltzer, who will be signing on the plaza. You just follow right up there. I think ive taking care of business. And im going to read what catherine thought was needful. Pat conroy is one of the souths most beloved writers. His books which include the great santini, the lords of discipline, the prince of tides, and most recently, the death of santini, sport beaches of southern identity. And focus on the complex Family Dynamics that often serve us as their hard. Today, he chats with Catherine Seltzer, an english professor at Southern Illinois university was recently published a critical study of his work, understanding pat conroy. [laughter] and who is currently working on a biography on conroy. Having careers this book, this is a book writer that you will be seeing when youre signing or there to have your book signed. But having perused it, its usually a gateway to understanding the complexities in his work. Its just wonderful. I just got it and just thought wow, what she is done with the works in helping us better understand this very complex man up here. And now i give you Catherine Seltzer and pat conroy. [applause] ive had the chance to interview pat weekly for the last several months. In researching this book in the next book and the conversations are always fun, always interesting. It is good to be able to do today with all of you. Extension of this conversation. Pat, i want to start a little bit of a different direction today though. Because we are in nashville, the home of the fugitive [inaudible] those people who thought to conform how we think about it still to this day. So i want to start asking you a couple questions about how you view yourself as a southern author and even more specifically about that southern sense of place, southern identity. And your work is deeply invested in places. For most of us we knew the South Carolina low country through your books before you ever step foot on it. Those of us have been lucky enough to spend time there recognize it immediately because we had read pat conroy. But as much as you are weighted to a place come your also someone who knows priceless this. You have moved dozens of time in your child as a military brat. You lived in san francisco, in rome. So you have a lot, like a very complex understanding. I would like to start by asking you about placing your identity as a southern writer in your works spending see why its hard to understand pat conroy . P. I never quite knew what to say about place because i think situation is fine. The reason i have a sense of place because i had none going to. How many people in your work marine brats or military brats . Usually we all feel the same way. If you had anything like the background i did. We moved, my father was dying, he pulls out a book and he says, hey, son, would you like to know every address youve moved into into we got to houston . I said yes. We had moved from the time of my birth in atlanta, we had moved 23 times until we got to buford when i was 15 years old. So that meant we changed schools almost every year. What is most, to me, what i am ridiculously friendly, as i knew no one growing up. I would walk into a school, and i smiled a lot. I looked friendly. I looked overly friendly today. [laughter] i think its all part of that not belonging at all. And wanting to belong. And by the time, bu when i was 5 we came to buford South Carolina. It was my Third High School and i was miserable at seven kids. I had dad, no one knew then come and we came to buford we crossed the bridge into Beaufort County and my mother was a driving. I was miserable and the kids were miserable, and my sister used to always have this routine. The sister was a poet, she would cry. As she would cry should catch the tears and a silver spoon she stole from my grandmother, and she would keep the tears and as we would go into the newtown, she would throw them out mom or dad last night and she would just fling them. [laughter] all the kids are crying. I love this. I love susie. I missed susie already. Carol, my poet said, would look around and say, think of susie as dead. [laughter] susie died and you will never see or hear from her again. And we are going to a new school and everybody we meet this year will die at the end of next year. [laughter] and then we will move again. I think what youre talking about is when i got to buford i said, mom, that was a high school in washington a year before. I said, mom, i never got invited to a boys house. I never spent the night. I never had a date. Ive never held a girls hand. Ive never danced with a girl. Mom was, you know, the nation needs a fighter pilot, son. We provide a fighter pilot. And i said still would be nice to hold a girls hand las. [laughter] she said, why dont you make buford your home . That has fought in three wars, and you have a right as a marine corps son to choose any city in america because your father has earned it. And now our family has earned it. So pathetically, catherine, i chose or buford, South Carolina, only because that was the first place a girl ever held my hand. [laughter] and a sport that is now hooked with me. This poor town i wasnt born there, i wasnt raised their but its got to be such a part of my life. A little guidebook came up several years ago were it not only listing as a native of the town. That tells people remember me writing my tricycle. [laughter] so thats the place. So i feel my sense of place is completely made up, completely phony. Theres nothing i can do about it. Let me ask you about your treatment of another place. Youve been writing about charleston since the lords of discipline really. And your new novel, the one youre working on right now is a novel that is set in about charleston. How has that seachange in your imagination. How has that shape your work . The south is changed only in my imagination because it changed the way it was when i was a kid. I was the the buford of the other day. There was a group of women eating. Obviously, they are in the same office and they were laughing their behind all. When i was new enough i could hear them talking about their boss. I tell another story, these women, theres about 10 of them and they are screening laughing about this boss and his idiosyncrasies. Five of the women were black, five were white, and it tickled me just to see. I was eating data with a friend of mine from new york, and he said what you laughing at . That wouldve been illegal when it first came to buford. You are always exaggerating what you mean illegal . I said no, no. They would have been arrested because blacks could not eat in this restaurant. What restaurant would be determined . I said, i dont think they could eat in any restaurant or i didnt know a black restaurant in beaufort. And so i have watched so many changes, over from the Civil Rights Movement in the south. I watched that. I got to see. It was amazing to me because there was a time i thought the south would never change, could not change. Then what do we have . I thought okay, i have seen the Womens Liberation Movement come roaring around the corner. Did you all know that one was coming . And i saw a few of the girls that graduate from high school with me not long ago. We had lunch, and they remembered what girls were told they could do. Now boys, we were told the world, we could go out in talk of the world, astronauts, go to the moon. The girls were told they could go out and be secretaries, they could be nurses, they could be librarians, they could be teachers, and they could be that most wonderful of all vocations, they could be mothers. And im sitting, some of these women are saying yes. Some of these women have done extraordinary things, big law firms in colombia. These women have been amazingly well and the women have been at least as well as of the men of my class. By the way, the south continued to change. How many people thought you would see gay marriage in the south in your lifetime . You know, i dont know what im going to see before i die. I just have no idea. But it certainly has been interesting and i didnt predict any other. It is that all fast they. I like the way the southern figures it out. I went to a gay wedding not long ago, and the grandparents, it was interesting talking to the grandparents. Weve always loved billy, and we still love and john is such a nice a boy. [laughter] so i just lie, the south, its interesting to me that way. I like watching it. Where is Catherine Seltzers children . Do not be ashamed. Where are her children . Stand up so i can see you all. There he is. [applause] pat go ahead, go ahead. This is an attempt to derail me from the tough questions. So im back. Unbacked. So let me ask you about writing about charleston not. I think the south has changed, and azure writing about it changed . The way you situate this novel thats in progress right now changed . You know, i think the most powerful thing thats happened to me as a person who loves charleston was this recent killing of nine parishioners in Temple Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in charleston, where a young white kid goes in with a gun. I think what was so shocking, he sat down and listened to the service. The service was about god and the service of god. And then nine people are shot. I think for the first time, South Carolina and grieved in one voice. That white, black, everybody could grieve together in the same for. Same or. Each race was just as horrified as the other. And the aching inability to make sense out of that, to make religious or spiritual sense out of that thing is one of the most Amazing Things ive ever been through in charleston. I want to ask you a little bit more about the new novel just because people ask me about it a lot. People are excited about it but i want to ask about from a different angle now about your process, about your writing process. Because thats something ive thought a lot about in regard to how you do it but i think it interest all of us who are not writers because it seems magical tools. And the way pat writes is particularly magical. His papers are now available at the university of South Carolinas library, the archives of there. And he writes entirely in longhand. At a look at these papers is really to see something unbelievable because you are not a lot of things that are scratched out. Theres not a lot of notes in the margins. That are not missing papers from the legal pads. Of books emerging old boys, fully realized. And my real question of courses how do you do that . But id like to ask i guess more generally about the writing process. Maybe about how youre approaching it right now with this novel. One of the processes of writing is i try to at least have a beginning, and i have found it, is usually somebody may rating that is a lot like me. My sister says the narrator is always some wonderful lifeaffirming, fabulous young man out of the south who has a hideous family. [laughter] unspeakable sisters. And he of course knows all things, fills all things, his compassionate beyond human belief. The entire book runs to him to his brilliance, through his thats what the new book is basically about. [laughter] but the thing that i love about writing is what i hear. I went to wedding. I dont know if you all would one of those weddings that wasnt yours, and it was sort of the first time you found out a wedding was a place to go to to meet other people, you know, to possibly find your own wife or husband, possibly find somebody to fall in love with. It was a party and everybody, their spirits were open. I wanted to write about this one party that intimidated me because, this is so painful to me, not give them. But my best friend was getting married and he said, we were not even having taxes because you know, my family knows your family is too cheap to rent a tux. So do you think you could spring for a blue suit . So pathetically, i go to my mother, crippled by the depression, mauled by the depression. And i said mom, i need to buy a blue suit. No. I said im, i just graduated from the citadel. I cant wear my uniform because i graduated. She said you can wear it for years. I thought it would be nice if you get married in a. I said mom, im going to get married when im 40 and a citadel uniform . So we went to robert hull in, do you remember robert hall . It was not like the greatest place on earth but it was certainly in my category. I go in there, i see a suit for 88. I just graduated from the citadel. Okay, i didnt have any presence, like graduation present. So mom found one for 39. 99. So she liked it better. Dodge, mom, what a shock that you like it better. So we fight, and finally i took this thing out. Now i am shoplifting this suit out of the store. Announcing to all the robert hull people, you can arrest me and the car. I will be driving down the highway, and mom rushes debate this suit. [laughter] i am recreating the wedding is one of the things that starts out this new book. Because a million things happen to me at that wedding. One thing that happens in the novel, youre asking, my friend married a nice girl, pretty girl, but pretty uninteresting. I met other people with really nice, real pretty, but pretty uninteresting to me. Those women Start Talking. So im like, they Start Talking and i had two characters that i have fallen in love with that i thought were dolts. In my mind they were no interesting. They had no part of this book. I started writing the dialogue down and they flamed into radiant white. I have to watch out, these two women, taking over this book right now. And i had no idea that was happening. I just did not know it. Thats one of things i would ask you about. Your papers reveal that you got an outline agenda theme for each novel that you want to include but you were also taken by surprise by your own work, too. Is that frustrating, terrifying, exciting . Or are used to it . Are used to the voices coming to you and the people appearing. If i start writing, the surprise is going to happen, whether i want them or not. I have one stupid thing i did in the prince of tides. I still shudder at night. Every once in a while conroy can go a little further than one once. I want her to go. Part of my weakness is a writer and i am fully aware of this. But i am sitting up and ive got the prince of tides. Ive got an escaped prisoner, his two buddies come to the island and they tear apart a family, rape the mother, rape this is a, rape the sun. They are telling to sound a partner i dont have to get them out of this. Living in rome, italy, and ive got this problem. Early in the book, one of my favorite South Carolina stories was there is a tiger at a gas station in columbia, South Carolina, and i used to love, get my car outcome give you a free car wash if he filled the tank of. Then you go feed chicken next to the tigers their happy with them as well tiger because its 110 degrees, and its hot and he was a very miserable tiger anyway, i put them in front of the book, forget about him. I had this horrible scene going on at the end of the book. I dont know how to end it. We go to a party in italy. Theres this beautiful italian woman sitting next to me, but because i have eyes like a novelist, i see deeper into the human heart than yall do. [laughter] i cannot help but notice that she is missing her left arm last night [laughter] her dress is pinned up beautifully, and she was sitting there talking and finally i said, maam, i hope this does not offend you but how did you lose your arm . And she said, oh, it was a nightmare. I was at the rome zoo and i saw someone trying to abuse the tiger with a shovel. He was hitting the tiger in the face with a shovel out of went to the rescue of the tiger, and he tore my arm off at the shoulder. So i am looking up, and i had this problem, and i look over at my wife and i say, i have a tiger in the backyard of the house in beaufort, South Carolina. And that is not the result later i thought, okay, what a stupid thing to do. You know, first of all how do you have a tiger there . I put him there. And then how do you get out of your family getting murdered . Simply bring a tiger to the house, knock on the door and when they opened it up they get a big surprise. I always considered that part of my ridiculous ive mentioned this a couple of times in interviews, intel i stopped when somebody said, mr. Conroy, shut up. Just shut up. It was an audience like this come and i said why . And she said, because people like me need that tiger. We have to have that tiger. Weve got to have it, and youve got to put it in. So that was a long way to answer that, catherine. [laughter] let me go back to asking you a little bit about your process. One of the things that you talk about regularly is reading poetry before you write. And pat has read more poetry across really periods of time and geographical space, and she really sort of consume it. What is it about that reading that inspires your own writing to get you started . Poetry to me still, ports poets, i dont have to do it. How many poems have you all bought in the last couple of years . And poets, very good, i mean, i by a lot come at the poets are so good for the changes in the language. You know, to make me see language in a different way. They make you look at language. Unlike when the novelist do that but the poets can do that for me. There was a poet that i met here last year named bethann findley. If youve not heard of her, she teaches at the university of mississippi. I went back and ordered her book. Shes great, and that led me to on to other books. And i have hundreds of books i think of poetry. My sister writes poetry, and youve always loved the things she does to me, when someone dies, carol will read a poem and i would the eulogy. Thats generally what we do. Carol in the last several funerals will tell me not only to love this, this literary feuding that best. Carol will look over at me and say you, pat, read your prose first. I am a poet. [laughter] and poetry is far more serious than prose, as every educated man or woman will tell you. So im always reading second. Carroll goes on and she reads like a poet. What affected me, just reminded me, catherine called a woman, now, you talk about, shes writing a fullfledged biography. The most embarrassing part of his biography so far has been my lack of sex in my life. [laughter] she has not hidden henry miller this time out. She is not it Norman Mailer on the Stump Mitchell asked me questions like how many times did you take that woman . Once. And my wife says you only dated women one time. But she hit onto a treasure trove. One woman, i thought i was in love with i first year in college at said adel, and i wrote her, was it 80 letters . 70 . Quite a few, absolutely. I wrote her 70, and we went through my papers and she wrote me none. [laughter] and when i have reread some of those letters in the pain of adolescence, stupidity, is so apparent. I had a friend of mine region before, mary smith, she said, god, she mustve thought you were a jerk back then. My god, who did you think you are writing to . Cleopatra . This is, kind of scared me about doing a biography. But theres nothing i can do about it now. Know, those letters in particular are so wonderful because you were writing most of them during the summer of your life when you were doing civil rights work and thinking, figuring out a lot about yourself and the world and your deeply earnest and thoughtful letters. Really, really interesting. I guess actually does lead one to the question i wanted to ask you today, which is going back and revisiting those past cells, that you said your work is explicitly autobiographical even when youre not writing memoir, even when youre writing. You talked a lot in is about going back and thinking about your family. I have a quotation here, in my losing season you have a line that no outsider ive ever met struck me was the strangest i encountered when i tried to discover the deepest mysteries of the boy i once was. And i love that. A letter going through that and going to the process of biography in these images, but even writing, do you feel like you know that south bend or do you still seem a stranger to you . Always a strange. I feel like im fighting on my book trying to figure who eyed him. I still, you know, i found out the weirdest things. A novelist whos done my genealogy this year. Ive never cared about genealogy at all. I think because i did not wish to find out from whence i came. And get a some surprise. My great grandmother, now look at my face. My great grandmother turned out to be a full blood cherokee indian. Now, do you look at conroy and think of cochise . [laughter] its been odd to me. My mother had no idea. Her family came over in 1700 i thought we came over during the potato famine. It was just a complete shock. I really dont know myself because you dont know that family you came from, everything the way we moved around, chicago irish, i know nothing about and dont like what i know. [laughter] i didnt like that and i didnt like his family, i didnt like his grandmother. Its all, and what ive been trying to do in writing this just to figure out who i am, why am i here, whats this all about . What is it you all came here today that you wanted to hear me say to you . When i cant even Say Something myself that helps me out. So all that comes into it that you came here, one of the things, the hunger ive always felt about why we read books. Thats why you get this chance to go away to improve yourself, get away from yourself is by reading that book, i can take off and i can escape at night and in a world that no one can come close to, especially now they have me, im reading, i found myself in the airport the other day, the whole airport is looking at the right hand. And i thought i never would have imagined this happening, that everybody is going to be trained to look at the right hand. The entire airport including people working, and were doing that. But in a book, thats a journey. Thats something wonderful. Let me ask you this. Ive been reading a lot of literary dr. Feely, and what he thinks ive been reading a lot of literary lately. Every one thinks writing gets is not easy and its a difficult task. The exploration of the south never seems natural. That seemed initially surprising but its starting to make sense but i wonder if its the truth for you . I think its true for everybody. One thing i know about you all coming here, a lot of you all want to write, wanted to write, inspired by writing. Its hard to do because its you. And it was me. You sit down and okay, you say youre going to write a novel. How do you get over that feeling . Here i am. Hemingway once did what i did. Henry james once did what i did. And out okay, pat conroy, theres a name for the ages. Pat conroy, irish boy from the bronx, father a cop. In taking yourself so so as a writer. It took me four novels to four iq to anybody i was a writer. I used to say i was a teacher before then because nobody ever asked you questions agency you are a teacher. [laughter] they dont want to know one thing else about, but it is, but thats the thing that does to affect, it has never gotten easier, still gets harder. And its what, i cant do anything else about it. Let me ask you about the challenge of writing this novel particularly because you sort of threw down the cant let at the end the deficit and taken that youre not going to write about your parents anymore. And youre moving away from that. Has that been harder than you thought it might be, or has it been liberating . Its been pleasant in this way. I knew by writing the death of santini i would lose my sister carol, who is my beloved sister carol. I would lose her forever. That was going to be something i lost. Every once in a while i would lose people over these books, and sometimes its for a one sometimes you get over it pretty quickly, but ive lost everybody for a time. In writing these books. Ive never explained it to you very well when you ask me these ridiculously personal, some of these questions. You ask me of, you know, why do you do this. The only thing i can think is, and i understand the problem with truth, the problem of the truth, youre eventually going to understand biography. It gets harder matter what you do. But if i dont try to tell the truth as i know it cant if i tried to hide it because somebody will get their feelings hurt or i would get my feelings hurt, something is wrong with me, my perception of myself as a writer my job for you used to be for whatever takes to be as honest so you guys can believe or not believe what im telling you. Theres a relationship between the writer and the reader that is a very important one, and one that i do not forget about. You are my responsibility, not my sister. And my sister, how about, yall got sisters, brothers . I just, oh, my god, one of the characters in the book, call my agent two days before and said there could be legal problems. That will come up every once in a while. But heres my theory. If you ever threaten to sue me, i can promise you, you have never been in a court where you have to pay your lawyer. Its about paying the lawyer that makes court very painful. Catherine. Speed and let me ask you one more question about that truth with a capital t. When youre writing do you ever feel like you are skirting around the truth and you have to go back and revisit it and find the truth . Are by the time you are ready to write, you feel as if you have a story to tell that is authentic and real and true . Is usually i have thought about these stories a lot of what we can do. I certainly thought about how i, carol, ive used those a hundred times, remember that guy from the fraternity who came up, a guy, university of georgia Fraternity Boy come and i was in atlanta. This guy, as he comes up to you know the guy, university of tennessee, president , you know the guy, and he marries the tridelta president , you know, youve never seen anybody look happier, more cheery. You know their kids that the books would be the book of common prayer. [laughter] you know what kind of car theyre going to try. Anyway, this kid comes up and he was too cocky for me. I like people to cite a law. I like people to look at me askance. He was just too little, too much to me. Hes read the prince of tides and he looks at me said conroy, lets admit it. Your family is nuts, or do they . Im the president , you know. You would not get in our back door to deliver groceries. And so i looked at the guy and i said yeah, my family is crazy, hello. Then i said, how is your family cracks. [laughter] and he was taken back. He goes back and says my family is great. Line, you know, plymouth rock. They came over, you know, aristocracy, plantations all over the south. And i said okay, be honest and to be honest too. How far do i have to go in this room with each one of you till i hit the first of crazy in your family . [laughter] okay, all right. [applause] okay, do you see what i mean . Usually its dad, mom, brother, sister, aunt, uncle. And generally we dont have to go beyond that discussion. Quadruple third cousins, you know, that never happens but we hit on one. This poor woman, this poor tridelta president is listening, this and that. And she finally breaks and she says, his mother is nuts last [laughter] those things are the hard things to say. When youre writing those things are the hard things. Like him when i look at katherines family, she has a handsome husband of neurosurgeon, enter pervert to little kids. Owing just turned five feet. Our member that moment when i turned five feet, magical moment. I am five feet. I rise five feet from the earth, and you just watch all the stuff and these things, these things we all go through. We all go through these things. You figure a way to deal with them one way or the other. Catherine. We have about 10 minutes left of the presentation when i say 10 minutes, like they are going to throw us out in 10 minutes. There could be violent action on the way out. But we do want to open it up for questions so we could address your questions as well. It will be just a couple questions do they but theres a microphone set up here in the center aisle if youre able to make your way. We will start with you because you are already writer in the center aisle. I could repeat it if you all cant hear it. I hear from the novels that you one brother you really like that from this morning i understand your business are you really like. But didnt get along well with the rest of your family come yet you wrote about them. Am i wrong or right . Here in nashville you are right. If i was in South Carolina, you are totally wrong, sir. [laughter] my brothers and sisters tickle me. Carol is a different, you know, sort. Carol howes, i thought carol showed poor timing she came out the day of my mother ship and says, pat, my shrink in new york says our family is toxic. Okay, i said carol, ive made a living off of that fact b. [laughter] this is not surprising. And my shrek says that i should never talk to any of you ever again in the world. So this is last time you are ever going to see me. Again, the not a pleasant time to bring it up, gilbert i said why dont we have this discussion while sitting on moms had . [laughter] and we have exposed casket, why do we sit on her head or her body and discuss this . But i mean, carol, we have not seen her since that funeral. Mom was 59. That was 1984. The other brothers and sisters, they are funny. My family is a funny family. They have a thing where they do, what is carol . What is she going to do when she gets a phone call the pat is dead . And all four of them jump up, and they do this. Let me show. [laughter] and the family, we get along. We married people off. We do this, but we all, when they do their dance, harolds dance of joy when pat is dead, we all are screaming laughing. We cannot help it. They have not seen roles in national about time, by the way. I remember this from last year. Yes . [inaudible] can you speak cullimore about your responsibility to your readers speak was yes. I consider that a central question. And it is the responsibility [inaudible] okay, the question is really, to clarify his point that the response of the right is the truth of the story rather than to the feelings of those people who may be rendered characters with his story. Is that a fair gloss of your question . [inaudible] okay. So responsibly to the readers. To the readers, i did it. You know, why would you rate me if you didnt think i was going to tell you the truth . Why would anybody do that . And when i read, you know, id like to tell myself, i may be lying to myself but this reader, this writer is trying to tell me something i need to know to get along on earth, something i need, some secret i need to have. The writers, the great writers always do that. What is this book that i read last year that, i went nuts over it, theres a guy in france, the light you cannot see. I just went crazy over the book and i thought, you know, this guy did not seem to be writing about anybody you know, but i did know that. What he did, he was able to move me in a way that i like to be moved in a book. I like to feel things in a book. I have had writers tell me they like to make people think things in a book. I think theres a difference in that, but the responsibility to meet is, is your family, if you write about your family, they have a right to tell you what they think about that. They have that right. Sometimes it is very rough what they think about that, but that is okay. You get by that, and you know, i have not been ashamed of anything ive written that i can think of about someone in my family. My first wife says, you never write about me, pat, because i am this sacred topic. Ive written about her twice. [laughter] but so cowardly in what i wrote about her that it made no difference to i said nothing, she was lovely that she came into the room like a spirit. She left. You can do it that way but if youre going to write were going to write seriously, you need to take everything that your climb towards the truth makes you do. I dont think of any other responsibility for that. And moms and dads can be the toughest, and your brothers and sisters, they can be the toughest. But ive now written about all of them. My brothers and sisters and i have a book out about that Conroy Family speaks, and you hear them speak. My family, you have seen this, catherine, my family have fallen in love with the lights. They sent pat will be available for the interviews. [laughter] we look over the pictures and help choose the best one to they went absolutely crazy over the cover of the book their own because the family looks like waxworks. The family says i look like that
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