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Pat Conroy A Critical Companion
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Landon C. Burns
Book Code: GR9419
ISBN: 0-313-29419-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-29419-8
216 pages
Greenwood Press
Publication: 5/30/1996
List Price: $46.95 (UK Sterling Price: £26.95)
Availability: Out of Stock Indefinitely
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Biographical information and critical analysis of this best-selling author are painstakingly presented. Conroy's dysfunctional family is well described in the first chapter...His coming-of-age themes and how his novels fit into the "Southern genre" are extensively discussed in the critical analysis of his work...Burns has done a fine job of delving into the writer's life and works...this is a much-needed resource.
    —
    School Library Journal
  • A model of its kind, this student aid is recommended for general and undergraduate collections.
    —
    Choice
Description: No one who has read Pat Conroy's novels of family wounds and healing can fail to be moved by their emotional appeal. But Conroy is also a major contemporary American novelist who follows in the tradition of Southern fiction established by William Faulkner and Thomas Wolfe. This companion is the first book-length study of his work. It explores the recurring motifs in his fiction and his special writing talents as a prose stylist of uncommon distinction. A separate chapter for The Boo and The Water is Wide and each novel-- The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, The Prince of Tides, and his most recent, Beach Music--provides a detailed analysis of the books and the common threads that unite all the novels. A biographical chapter draws connections between Conroy's life and the autobiographical nature of his fiction. A chapter on genre traces Conroy's roots in southern fiction and shows how all the novels fall into the rite-of-passage genre. Each novel is analyzed for plot structure, characterization, thematic elements, and Conroy's increasingly elaborate style and development as a master of the art of the novel. In addition, Burns defines and applies a variety of alternative approaches to the novels to widen the reader's perspective. A complete bibliography of Conroy's fiction as well as selected reviews and criticism complete the work. Because of Pat Conroy's popularity among adults and teenagers, this first critical work of a major contemporary American writer is a necessary purchase by public and secondary school libraries.
Table of Contents:
  • Series Foreword by Kathleen Gregory Klein
  • The Life of Pat Conroy
  • Genres
  • The Boo (1970) and The Water is Wide (1972)
  • The Great Santini (1976)
  • The Lords of Discipline (1980)
  • The Prince of Tides (1986)
  • Beach Music (1995)
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 95-39495
LCC Class: PS3553
Dewey Class: 813
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