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"In every one of . . . [novelist Pat] Conroy's big, story-driven Southern books, there has been a father, a son and a holy ghost in the form of an ineffable secret," wrote Tracy Cochran of Publishers Weekly. Conroy has made a cottage in...

Pat Conroy's writing is marked by an obsessive interest in the love/hate relationship and its ensuing tensions. Whether between Citadel cadet and "The Boo," young teacher and school superintendent, or teenage son and "Great Santini," this search for bala...

Walking into the North End with Frank Bellotti is like strolling onto the set of "Rocky": up-tempo, lots of eye contact, plenty of hollering. "Yo, Frank-eee. Howareya? Hey, my old man wantsta see ya. Hey, go geddum. Frank, you gotta go for that...

Byline: TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER WHEN EMILIO SANTINI was young, he lived on an island of glass. Everywhere, there was glass - hand-blown and flame-worked, chandeliers and goblets. Glass so extraordinary, it could make you weep. The best in the world. ...

JANE: I know we’re here to talk about a serious topic, and one that’s close to your heart. But let’s start off light. I love what you’re wearing. BLYTHE: Oh, thank you. It’s Max Mara. I ran out of the house this morning—I actually thought...

When the great, irreplaceable Rosemary Clooney died, she left her lifetime collection of musical arrangements-a 60-year career of archival-status treasures, from soup to nuts-to Debby Boone. Not to the ASCAP, the Smithsonian or the Salvation Army, but to Pat Boone's little girl. This is not...

Pat Conroy's first novel, The Great Santini (1976), is a curious blend of lurid reality and fantastic comedy, which deals with approximately one year in the life of Ben Meecham and his family. It is primarily a novel of initiation, but central to the concept of Ben's initiation into manhood and to the meaning of the whole novel is the idea that individual myths must be stripped away from Ben and the other major characters before Ben can approach reality with objectivity and maturity. In The Gr...

In a novel which displays a keen insight into family life on a military base, author Pat Conroy appears to be writing his autobiography. Indeed, the dedication of [The Great Santini] in effect verifies this. As a result, the book is an unadulterated, realistic view of a military family ruled by an authoritarian father who has more faith in the military institution than he has in his own family…. Pat Conroy not only depicts the general course of family life on a military base but also delves into the ...

The strength of [The Great Santini] … is its realism. The dialogue, anecdotes, and family atmosphere are pure Marine…. At the heart of the book is the search of the 18-year-old son to find himself while learning to understand and love his rigidly authoritarian Marine father, the "great Santini." A good novel and enjoyable reading, though the descriptive writing is somewhat juvenile. As usual, when one reads a first novel so heavily autobiographical, one wonders if the author has ...

A sociological viewpoint of the book/movie The Great Santini. It views Bull Meechum as a terrible father and he is the opposite of what sociology teaches us a father should be like.