Power and the family foundation. What a terrific day we are blessed to host such celebrated authors in Trinity United Methodist church today which has been made possible by the generosity of curt anderson, we like to stand special thanks to our literary members and individual owners who have made and continue to make the festival free. Before we get started saturdays, i said sundays. To make Saturdays Free festival events possible. Before i get started there are always housekeeping issues. Immediately following the presentation, Cassandra King will sign books. She will leave here and go directly there and it would be great if you would let her get there. We have a new policy. If you are planning to stay for the next author presentation please move forward in the church as the venue empties so that the ushers can accurately count available seats. In years past we ask you to leave, today we ask you to step forward. Please take a minute to turn off your cell phones. I know you think you did but please do. We also ask that you do not use flash photography. For the question and answer portion another change. Please raise your hand and the ushers will bring the microphone to you. Cassandra king is with us today courtesy of john and melanie, Cassandra King is author of five novels, most recently the critically acclaimed moonrise with her literary homage to rebecca. Moonrise was a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance bestseller. Cassandra king is joining us to say to commemorate pat conroy, a leading figure in the 20th century southern literature, conroy has influenced a generation of writers and moved readers in and out of the low country with his unforgettable pros. Today king will discuss conroys a lowcountry heart reflections on a writing life, essays published posthumously. I always struggle with that word. Please join a warm welcome to Cassandra King. [applause] thank you, it is great to be here in the city of savannah since i live in buford. We both love savannah. Always think of savannah as Scarlett Ohara and charleston as miss melanie. Have a soft spot for savannah. This of course is bittersweet for me to be here talking about pat especially this time of year because it has been almost a year, if you weeks off a year since his death. It has been a very difficult year as i am sure you know. When the book came out last october his publisher, random house, had asked me if thank you. If i would go around and speak to various festivals and so forth about the book. And if i would be able to do so. I told him of course that i would. It wouldnt be any problem and so forth. But then i wasnt so sure. Once i started to do so. What kept me going is i would tell myself pat would have done it for me. And he did. Remember one time in georgia, got a great surprise and great thrill because they are still talking about it because i got the flu. I was supposed to speak. The day of practically, i thought i was going, pat said no. Im going in your place so that was real. A lot of folks hoped i would get the flu. If you ever heard pat speak, you will know why he was absolutely one of the most entertaining speakers i have ever heard. [applause] he was 100 irish, but he was absolutely an entertaining and wonderful speaker. It has been strange in some ways to go around and speak for another writer about another writers book that writers book. When i came to the savannah book festival for my own book several years ago i was one of the first. I spoke in this church and since i had written a book some methodists didnt take very kindly to, i said are you sure it is going to be okay to speak . Last night at the reception i was told pat spoke here when he was here. If the church survived past, it can sure survive me. I think sometimes that we are given these book tours to keep us in our place and keep us humble. I love to tell a story about how writers can always because i had done a book signing in my hometown in alabama and was coming home, i pulled in, looking around and there was a dollar table there and i found one of my books signed by me. I take the book to the man running it and i say is this book a dollar . He looked at me and says yes. You can have it for . 50. [applause] i want to read a quote from the la times. Miss fortune has in good to novelist pat conroy. It has given him a family of eccentric misfit, braggarts and liars. Since i read that i am not quite sure which category i fall into. May be a little bit of all of those. I was thinking about talking about pat and trying to make folks see the pat that i spent my last 19 years with and loved dearly and respected so much and enjoyed so much that i was thinking i guess i could go around and do sort of a presentation as though speaking to my english classes about his works and his themes and all this sort of stuff but i was thinking know, that is not really pat. What i think i will do is what i have been doing, just to tell some stories that i hope will help you see the kind of person he was to live with because it was quite a trip. It was quite a trip but i was also very blessed to have that time with him. I want to make sure i have plenty of time for questions. There is the person that will waive and tell me when it is time to shut my mouth and that you ask question. I was thinking in terms of what would be the story, some of the stories i could tell about pat because there are so many. They are just about all funny because he was the funniest person i have ever known. He was like that all the time. I have had people say to me, this is the truth on a couple occasions, you are married to pat conroy, bless your heart. That must really be difficult. He is so dark and tortured, felt like i was very to a modernday heathcliff or something but i could see why you would think that but that was me, that is not passed. He is the one you should be saying bless your heart, but he was so goodnatured. He got up in a good mood every morning. Sometimes i couldnt even get around him for a while because he was so cheerful. Not the tortured part did come out. I was thinking one of my favorite things about pat he was never at a loss or words. It was like, most writers have an introverted side, but he was very much in extrovert because one characteristic of extroverts is a ready reply. I am very much an introvert myself, always think i should have said so and so. Hurt my feelings or so sarcastic and didnt know what to say. Pat never had that problem. Is a matter of fact it was interesting to here some of his responses. Occasionally i traveled with him. Not too much especially after we were married a lot. It was a novelty at first and then a chore. But he was also combative and he spent most of his life battling some institution, he would talk to any about anything and some of you are going to know what im talking about when i say savanna and a certain institute, here is no exception. I got into a battle about that but his very first book, this started when he was 25 years old and he took on the Beaufort County board of education, went on to take on his favorite targets or his second favorite and his father and his family and anything that he perceived as an injustice, he was ready always so consequently this hardly ever happens to me but pat would encounter some hostility from some. I would cringe at first because mister conroy, you said in a recent interview that blob loblaw, and the questioning, get really nervous, learned not to worry at all. I begin to feel sorry because i knew that sharp tongue was going to get him afterwards like that so one of his favorite targets was the citadel. He actually loved it. He enjoyed picking on them. One of his favorite things. Anything he would say about the citadel would get picked up by the newspapers so talk about him being at a loss for words, never at a loss for words, tell you one time it did to see him at a loss for words, the way he picked on the citadel, he said in an interview that the citadel owed him a great debt of gratitude that he was living proof that he could deed is a graduate, and not part of the small intestine. He didnt appreciate that much. One time i was with him, this man gets up and he said mister conroy, i have a lot of citadel friends and they tell me not to pay any attention to what you wrote about the citadel because you are not a typical citadel man. Pat said you are right, pal. I am a lot nicer, im a lot more successful and im a whole lot smarter. So there you go. That was him. One time i saw him, he was speaking in atlanta and i tagged along, they put us up downtown at the ritz carlton and there was this very dignified gentleman who helped us take our suitcases to the room and he said to pat, mister conroy, i heard them say downstairs that you and your wife both our writers and pat said that is right, but my wife writes pornography while i write nothing but christian fiction. So he was looking at me like that, how are you going to get out of this one . The guy threw his arms up and he said praise the lord, brother. I run a Christian Radio Program and the lord promised me he would send me a speaker for tomorrows program. [applause] i cannot tell you how pat. Himself out of that because i was laughing so hard i had to go out of the room. That was him. Now, i will have to tell you about my one and only come back. I am so proud of it, i go around telling it all the time but i was speaking at a festival in Fort Lauderdale in florida, when i got there, i noticed i was on the program and had a huge auditorium, on the program, four of us, three really well known i dont even know where that came from, you know . I i just said it. [laughter] okay. Past stories pat stories. Pat was, what was he . [laughter] how can i tell you about pat . He lived in another world, you know . He lived in his head a lot. And so he was not very attentive if youve seen pictures of him, hes always wearing the same thing. [laughter] he, his wardrobe, he was not, you know, like a fashion plate or anything like that. So his wardrobe, khakis and a Navy Blue Shirt usually and a navy blue blazer. And he, he just didnt think. He would just pull anything out. And for some reason, he there was something about pat and having to go to a funeral that didnt work with his, with his wardrobe choices. [laughter] when i lost my sister about three years ago and i had gone on over and then pat came, and this seemed to happen a lot. I went to get his clothes out of the because he didnt, he just came in, you know, without anything, went out to the car to get his clothes, except he hadnt brought any. [laughter] so the morning of her Memorial Service, we were out, you know, shopping. [laughter] there was not much, it was a small town in alabama, but there was a shop that sold about the only thing we could find open. We didnt have time to go to [inaudible] or Something Like that. So they had prom be clothes. [laughter] so pat dose goes to my sisters funeral, gives her eulogy looking like an italian pump. [laughter] italian pimp. There was another, another time when a dear friend of ours in virginia died, and pat was going to speak at her Memorial Service , and actually it was Barbara Worley that he wrote about and has an essay about Barbara Worley in this book. And i was not able to attend. I had, had to fly to something and was not able to go, and so pat was going the drive up to the worley Memorial Service, and then he was getting some kind of big award in columbia, South Carolina. At the college. Like, the president was presenting the award and so forth. So i, knowing pat, i thought i had learned my lesson. And so i packed his clothes, and i took a sheet of paper, and i wrote columbia, South Carolina, on it and put it over the hanging clothes and zipped them up and put those in the back of the trunk. And he left in his khakis and tshirt and sports jacket. Fortunately, it was cold, so he had a sports jacket. And so explained everything to him. And he had back problems, so i wasnt like his valet or something, but a lot of times id get the suitcases because wed have to get somebody to do it, or theyd stay out there all the time. So sure enough, i go out there to bring his suitcase in after he had returned home from this presentation. Jonathan, you might have been there, and im sure you pretended you didnt know him as i would have done had i been there, because still hanging over [laughter] the suitcase, the hangers were my note, you know, be with sure and wear this in columbia, South Carolina. Which he had not done and never, never i said, pat, you wore, youve worn this for three days, you know . You wore this to barbaras service and now you just wore it to oh, oh, was i supposed to wear . You know. So that was pat. He was very, very endearing about that. Im going to tell one more story, and then im going to see if we have some questions there you. Make sure im looking at the clock. Because this one is absolutely one of my favorites, and it involves pats dear friend, Bernie Schein. Now, Bernie Schein is a whole story in himself. If youve read any of pats works, and im sure most of you have, thats why youre here, his friend bernie appears in a lot of them. Bernie is just the most outrageous person, i guess, thats ever lived. So he and pat together were a total, total hoot. Or i thought so until this happened. [laughter] so in the last couple of years of pats life, he had given up some of his bad habits. And so instead of having a cocktail, he took up another bad habit, he and bernie would have a cigar every afternoon sitting on the porch. And this was an upstairs porch that we have in our house in buford. Their little smoking porch, i guess. And so bernie and pat would have these wonderful discussions. My office where i have this little daybed thing where i sometimes work sitting on the daybed, right by the windows. Theyre right above me. And i would love to hear, because they both have big mouths, loud, you know . [laughter] bernies obnoxious as all get out, you know . So they would just, but they would always have these great conversations about literature, and they would get into, you know, heated discussions over these. So a couple of summers ago i had had sort of a rough summer. I was having some health problems, and i was not feeling well at all that day. Later on that afternoon i i got really, really sick, and i started perspiring which, since im a southern belle, i never do. [laughter] something was really bad wrong. So i was, i just was lying down there on my little bed, and i could hear pat and bernie up there. And cigar smoke coming out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So i called up, pat, bernie . Pat . And, you know, they couldnt hear me because of their big mouths. [laughter] and i could have called pat, but he never had his phone with him or anything. So i just called 911. [laughter] because i thought i was dying. I thought i was having a heart attack. And so they sent six i i was about to say paratroopers, but paramedics [laughter] you know, these huge men with all these huge muscles x they came and hooked me up to all these machines, and they said, maam, are you here by yourself . I said, my husbands but by the end, i was, my husbands upstairs. So the guy goes looking, but theyre sitting over in the corner. He doesnt see pat and bernie. He told the guys, i didnt know this until later, this is theres no one up there. So they carry me off, the ambulance going and all this sort of stuff. [laughter] about two hours later it gets dark. Bernie goes home, pat comes dun looking for me. [laughter] and he looks and, you know, my office, he looks all around, its all dark downstairs. Ive made no dinner or anything like that. [laughter] so he he calls bernie, and he said, bernie he called me sandra. He said, did sandra go home with you . [laughter] and bernie said, no, why . I cant find her anywhere. Well, she just went to the store no, her cars out this. So bernie says, hang on, ill come over and help you look. [laughter] so bernie and pat go looking all through the neighborhood calling for me. And we live on this creek, so pat said shes committed suicide. [laughter] finally a woman cannot live with me. I knew all i all along i would never have a happy marriage. Shes jumped in the creek and so forth. [laughter] bernie finally said, im calling 911, pat. And pat said, do you think . You know, bernie said, hell, shes not here, shes got to be somewhere. [laughter] so he calls 911, they said, yes, we picked your wife, you know [laughter] shes in the buford emergency room. [laughter] shes been here a couple hours. [laughter] it gets better. [laughter] pat had, i had he was totally incompetent, remember this, his wardrobe and everything. I had bought him a car because he gave his other car to his daughter. Shed driven it back to philadelphia. He had never driven it before. So he and bernie head to the hospital. Its raining, pat cant turn he turned the lights the lights came on, he couldnt turn on the windshield wipers, so he rolls the window down and sticks his head out and drives to the hospital. [laughter] lets bernie out while he finds a place to park. And when he goes in and says, pat conroy, my wife is here, theyve brought her in by ambulance and so forth. The man looks down and said, no, her husbands back there with her now. [laughter] so pat says, hes a little bitty jewish guy with a beard . Get him out of there. [laughter] so that was life with pat. [laughter] it was never, ever a dull moment even when i was dying, you know . [laughter] but i would love to hear what you want to know about, about pat and about our life together, about his writing or whatever. So i would like to open up if the floor now for questions. Oh, come on. [laughter] my question is about some of your most cherished gifts from him, whether theyre gift withs of words or gifts of words or tokens of remembrance. Gifts to him or from him . From him to you. Oh. My most cherished gift from pat are these wonderful little notes that he would write me. And some of them were hilarious. Pat had a nickname for me that he always said when he told people this, he said i know it sounds cruel, but it you knew her, you would see why i call her that. [laughter] because im from alabama, among other reasons, he called me helen keller. [laughter] and he called me that all the time because he said i said nothing, heard nothing, you know, saw nothing. [laughter] and that worked out well for him, because he could blame me for anything. If he was supposed to do something and he forgot, he would always say, well, helen keller didnt tell me i was supposed to do it. [laught