Pat Conroy: Our Lifelong Friendship - Bernie Schein

When it came to exposing his personal life in print, Pat Conroy seems to have had little fear despite knowing that numerous members of his family were not going to appreciate his decision to air the family’s dirty laundry in so public a manner.  Conroy was so frank about himself and his upbringing that longtime readers of his work easily could see that the man was still carrying emotional baggage from his childhood, but few outsiders could know just how heavy that burden was. Now, Bernie Schein, Pat’s lifetime best friend despite a fifteen-year interruption to their friendship, takes up where Pat left off.  

Many Pat Conroy fans came to consider him a personal friend over the decades they read him, so for obvious reasons Schein’s Pat Conroy: Our Lifelong Friendship is not an easy book to read – it just hurts too much to watch a friend suffer the way Pat suffered.  It is, however, a book that Pat Conroy fans owe it to themselves (and to Pat) to read.

Bernie Schein was a senior in Beaufort High School (South Carolina) when military brat Pat Conroy entered the school as a junior.  It was soon obvious that Conroy was going to be a star athlete despite the resentment of the school’s seniors who would have preferred that he fail.  What was not immediately so obvious is that he was also going to become a huge social star among the school’s freshmen, sophomores, and juniors.  And after Bernie invited Pat to the very first school party of any type he would ever attend, the two became friends for the rest of their lives.

Bernie Schein

Their friendship started in a 1961 Beaufort High School study hall, and it would not end until the two men said their goodbyes at Pat’s deathbed on March 4, 2016.  Along the way, Pat, Bernie, and the rest of their crew managed to avoid the Viet Nam War while Pat and Bernie prepared for careers as school teachers and writers.  The two shared a sense of humor that usually saw them trading one verbal putdown after another any time they were together. Each gave as well as he got, but largely due to his alcoholism and the damage that Santini did to his soul, Pat’s vulnerabilities and insecurities were sometimes expressed in bursts of sudden anger and an uncanny ability to hold a grudge for reasons that were often only imagined.   

Yes, this is a book for Pat Conroy fans, but as one of those fans, I have to warn you that you will come away from it a little saddened by some of the things you learn about Pat’s interactions with those closest to him.  For that reason, this is not always an easy book to read.  But Pat, especially near the end of his life, expressed a desire to be as honest with his fans as he could possibly be. He was willing to talk about anything and everything, and Bernie Schein makes sure here that Pat gets his wish.  Pat would have approved.

More than anything in the world, Pat Conroy wanted to be the hero in his world, and he worked hard to play that role – often to his own detriment. Little did he realize how big a hero he always was to his readers.

Copy provided for review purposes by Arcade Publishing

Book Number 3,405