Tell Me a Story
My Life with Pat Conroy
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4.6 • 61 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“Tell Me A Story is breathtakingly tender, heartbreakingly true...The best memoir I’ve read.” — Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of The Beach House Reunion
Bestselling author Cassandra King Conroy considers her life and the man she shared it with, paying tribute to her husband, Pat Conroy, the legendary figure of modern Southern literature.
Cassandra King was leading a quiet life as a professor, divorced “Sunday wife” of a preacher, and debut novelist when she met Pat Conroy.
Their friendship bloomed into a tentative, long-distance relationship. Pat and Cassandra ultimately married, ending Pat's long commutes from coastal South Carolina to her native Alabama. It was a union that would last eighteen years, until the beloved literary icon’s death from pancreatic cancer in 2016.
In this poignant, intimate memoir, the woman he called King Ray looks back at her love affair with a natural-born storyteller whose lust for life was fueled by a passion for literature, food, and the Carolina Lowcountry that was his home. As she reflects on their relationship and the eighteen years they spent together, cut short by Pat’s passing at seventy, Cassandra reveals how the marshlands of the South Carolina Lowcountry ultimately cast their spell on her, too, and how she came to understand the convivial, generous, funny, and wounded flesh-and-blood man beneath the legend—her husband, the original Prince of Tides.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
King Conroy (The Same Sweet Girls' Guide to Life) honors her late husband, Prince of Tides author Pat Conroy, who died in 2016, with this heartfelt memoir about their 18-year marriage. The couple met in 1995 at a literary event in Alabama when Conroy was an established author and King Conroy hadn't yet published her first novel. Both were going through divorces, and King Conroy charmingly describes how she and Conroy kept in touch via phone calls before finally going on a date in 1997. A romance blossomed, and in 1998 when they were both past 50 they married: "We just enjoyed being together," the author writes. "We talked for hours and we laughed a lot." During their time together, they published five books each. King Conroy credits Conroy with encouraging her to write The Sunday Wife and reveals that he gave her the ultimate gift after they married: her first writing room. She celebrates his "exuberant" presence and recalls his enthusiasm for helping developing writers. The final chapters, about Conroy's cancer diagnosis and his death at home, are tinged with sadness and hope. This engrossing tearjerker will appeal to fans of both King Conroy and her husband, and those inspired by literary romances.
Customer Reviews
Tell Me A Story
Wonderful tribute!
Tears and laughter combine to make this one great read.
Thank you for sharing.
G. Correll
Pawleys Island, SC
Tell Me A Story
If you are looking for insights into Pat Conroy’s writings and process this book will be a major disappointment. It covers the courtship and happy marriage of Conroy and the author. I found it to be highly repetitive, covering their day to day life, travels as well as the deaths of many friends and family members. The author describes Conroy’s humor, heavy drinking, eating and forgetfulness over and over again. I gained much less information about his approach as an author than in his numerous interviews I’ve read over the years. A major disappointment.