Overview
"In The Lost Prince Michael Mewshaw sets down one of the most gripping stories of friendship I've ever read." --Daniel Menaker, author of My Mistake: A MemoirPat Conroy was America's poet laureate of family dysfunction. A larger-than-life character and the author of such classics as The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, Conroy was remembered by everybody for his energy, his exuberance, and his self-lacerating humor. Michael Mewshaw's The Lost Prince is an intimate memoir of his friendship with Pat Conroy, one that involves their families and those days in Rome when they were both young--when Conroy went from being a popular regional writer to an international bestseller. Family snapshots beautifully illustrate that time. Shortly before his forty-ninth birthday, Conroy telephoned Mewshaw to ask a terrible favor. With great reluctance, Mewshaw did as he was asked--and never saw Pat Conroy again. Although they never managed to reconcile their differences completely, Conroy later urged Mewshaw to write about "me and you and what happened . . . i know it would cause much pain to both of us. but here is what that story has that none of your others have." The Lost Prince is Mewshaw's fulfillment of a promise.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781640091498
- ISBN-10: 1640091491
- Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
- Publish Date: February 2019
- Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
- Page Count: 288
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The Lost Prince
Author Pat Conroy was larger than life, and his work vividly described the dark shadows and bright corners of family life in the South. Like William Faulkner and James Dickey, Conroy told sprawling tales about himself, his family and his friends. He was a lovable, irascible rapscallion and a raconteur who never met a story he couldn’t tell with humor, relish and gusto. Since Conroy’s death in 2016, several books have followed: A Lowcountry Life: Reflections on a Writing Life, a posthumous collection of his own writings; My Exaggerated Life, an oral biography by Katherine Clark; and Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, a collection of fond memories.
Michael Mewshaw’s The Lost Prince joins in this flood of memories, offering an intimate, affectionate and candid portrait of his friendship with Conroy. While Mewshaw was living in Rome in the 1980s, Conroy called him one day out of the blue, looking for the companionship of another American writer in Rome. When the two first met, they discovered their shared love of basketball, their similarly dysfunctional families and their fear of flying. Over the next decade, Mewshaw and Conroy and their families were almost inseparable, enjoying parties with well-known literary figures such as Gore Vidal and William Styron. However, after a seismic event in the mid-1990s, the lights went out in their relationship, and the two never reconciled.
In a letter to Mewshaw in 2003, Conroy asked him to write about “you and me and what happened.” In The Lost Prince, Mewshaw lovingly, colorfully and splendidly does just that.
The Lost Prince
Author Pat Conroy was larger than life, and his work vividly described the dark shadows and bright corners of family life in the South. Like William Faulkner and James Dickey, Conroy told sprawling tales about himself, his family and his friends. He was a lovable, irascible rapscallion and a raconteur who never met a story he couldn’t tell with humor, relish and gusto. Since Conroy’s death in 2016, several books have followed: A Lowcountry Life: Reflections on a Writing Life, a posthumous collection of his own writings; My Exaggerated Life, an oral biography by Katherine Clark; and Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy, a collection of fond memories.
Michael Mewshaw’s The Lost Prince joins in this flood of memories, offering an intimate, affectionate and candid portrait of his friendship with Conroy. While Mewshaw was living in Rome in the 1980s, Conroy called him one day out of the blue, looking for the companionship of another American writer in Rome. When the two first met, they discovered their shared love of basketball, their similarly dysfunctional families and their fear of flying. Over the next decade, Mewshaw and Conroy and their families were almost inseparable, enjoying parties with well-known literary figures such as Gore Vidal and William Styron. However, after a seismic event in the mid-1990s, the lights went out in their relationship, and the two never reconciled.
In a letter to Mewshaw in 2003, Conroy asked him to write about “you and me and what happened.” In The Lost Prince, Mewshaw lovingly, colorfully and splendidly does just that.