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The Water Is Wide: A Memoir

3.97 of 5 stars 3.97 · rating details · 7,421 ratings · 550 reviews

The island is nearly deserted, haunting, beautiful. Across a slip of ocean lies South Carolina. But for the handful of families on Yamacraw island, America is a world away. For years the people here lived proudly from the sea, but now its waters are not safe. Waste from industry threatens their very existence–unless, somehow, they can learn a new life. But they will learn...more

Paperback, 320 pages

Published March 26th 2002 by Dial Press Trade Paperback (first published 1969)

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Jun 06, 2012 Gretchen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I really enjoyed this book. Mr. Conroy, a young, idealistic, middle-class white teacher is offered a job to teach on mostly-African American Yamacraw Island, an island in South Carolina virtually cut off from society, both figuratively and literally. The year was 1969 and in the Southern United States, children of different races were not educated together. Educating the students who lived on the impoverished island of Yamacraw proved to be a challenge for the young teacher, as he fought for opp...more

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Nov 06, 2008 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is probably more of a reflection than a"review" I read this book when I first started teaching, and my naive and much younger self wanted to be exactly the kind of teacher Pat Conroy had wanted to be-one who worked with children who needed me and whose lives I could touch in some way-only I would do it better of course! My first teaching job plunked me down in a non-air-conditioned overcrowded school in Little Havana (in the heart of the city of Miami, FL for you non-natives) with 100% of m...more

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Jan 28, 2008 Kellie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-reads, bookclub-books, non-fiction

I was really impressed with this book. Not only did I enjoy the story, which is true, but I also enjoyed the writing of Pat Conroy. This is the first book I have read by Conroy. This is about the experience Conroy had in the early 70’s teaching in a one room school house on Yamacraw Island (which is the pseudonym for Daufuskie Island), an island off the coast of South Carolina. This island was populated by mostly African Americans. The experience was truly eye opening . It really depicted the so...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Joanie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't remember if I read this before or after I saw the movie "Conrack" with Jon Voight but they're both great.

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Jun 05, 2008 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: education, biography

This was the first Pat Conroy book I read, and several years later, I had an opportunity to spend some time on Yamacraw, the island where he taught school. It was a magical place, with sandy roads shaded by great oak trees dripping with spanish moss. The people lived in backwards conditions, but they were tied to the land and their relationship with the land and the ocean in a way that few if any of the rest of us will ever experience. This is an inspiring, uplifting book and I am a better perso...more

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Dec 04, 2011 Cindy Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, southern, author, georgia, south, carolina, education, poverty, racism, june, 2011, 75, book, challenge

28. [The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] [return][return][The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] is the true story of his year teaching on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. The children Conroy taught were pushed aside and all but forgotten by the state educational system. The children knew little to nothing of the world outside of their poverty stricken island home. [return][return][The Water is Wide] is an emotional book, hilarious on one page, sad on the next. [[Pat Conroy]] desc...more 28. [The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] [return][return][The Water is Wide] by [[Pat Conroy]] is the true story of his year teaching on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. The children Conroy taught were pushed aside and all but forgotten by the state educational system. The children knew little to nothing of the world outside of their poverty stricken island home. [return][return][The Water is Wide] is an emotional book, hilarious on one page, sad on the next. [[Pat Conroy]] describes the island and its inhabitants beautifully; the people come to life on the page. As he describes how he attempts to show the children the world he knows, he shares how the children teach him about their world. Through his experience with the children of Yamacraw Island, Conroy learns hard, but important lessons about life, human nature, and value systems. [return][return]The teacher in me shares Conroy� s passion to not only teach the children, but to open the world to them. The mother in me is appalled at the lives some children lead, and the parents who allow it to happen. The southerner in me is embarrassed at the attitudes that were considered acceptable and even normal.[return][return]The following quote describes what Mr. Conroy discovered within the first few days of arriving at the two room school house on Yamacraw Island: [return][return]� The first thing I learned when I got there was that fourteen of the seventeen kids in grades five through eight read below the first grade level. Five of the kids did not know the alphabet; five of the kids also did not know how to add one and one, two and two, things I thought rather basic in the education of most people. I also discovered that most of the kids have been trained to obey the whip and the belt and the hand. What they feared most was physical punishment. Everyone in my class was interrupted by the sound of leather on flesh from the next room. And these kids evidently had become accustomed to corporal punishment and they would learn only in response to corporal punishment. The thing I thought I had to do first was to not beat the kids but to let them know that education was fun.�(less)

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Jan 04, 2009 bookczuk rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-autobiography-or-memoir, favorite-author, home-library, made-me-uncomfortable, places-i-have-been, set-in-my-stomping-grounds, set-in-the-south, southern-author

I had gotten a copy of this book a while back for a few reasons:
1. It takes place in SC
2. Pat Conroy is a SC writer
3. I like some of his stuff, despite his lunatic family
4. I had fond memories of the movie
5. One of my favorite folk songs is "The Water is Wide".
6. A friend of mine is mentioned in the afterword.

I saw the movie made from this book when I was a teenager, a few years before my family moved to South CArolina. It made a big impression on me, so it was with some trepidation that I actua...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Susan Emmet rated it 5 of 5 stars

I've long been drawn to Pat Conroy's work. Find him humorous, perceptive, raw and real.
I've only been through SC. My life has been lived in MI, NY and Maine. In 1971, idealistic liberal-snot me went to Mexico, ME, to enlighten mill town students. I well remember trying to unlock the mysteries of "Moby Dick" with juniors who called it "Moby's Dick" and wrote wonderful essays of a semi-satirical nature, dwelling on all things phallic. Also had a "DUH?" moment of revelation while reading a book wit...more I've long been drawn to Pat Conroy's work. Find him humorous, perceptive, raw and real.
I've only been through SC. My life has been lived in MI, NY and Maine. In 1971, idealistic liberal-snot me went to Mexico, ME, to enlighten mill town students. I well remember trying to unlock the mysteries of "Moby Dick" with juniors who called it "Moby's Dick" and wrote wonderful essays of a semi-satirical nature, dwelling on all things phallic. Also had a "DUH?" moment of revelation while reading a book with sophomores that included escalators. The kids had no idea what people did on escalators. Then scabies struck and one of my classes was hardest hit - the kids living with no heat or running water in tenements near the river. All the teachers helped oversee huge amounts of Qwell-application and some of us were required to oversee showering. And the river was filthy, afoam with crap from the mills in NH and Rumford and further downriver. I got in big trouble one day over opening the windows in our room. The principal threw a fit and locked the windows for good. There was - and is - so much beauty in that area of Maine. I lasted a year. My fiance's death and a pull to go elsewhere led me further south along the river. I remained a public school teacher for forty years and do not regret that service - or the wonder of students.
So I guess that "The Water Is Wide" simply resonates in me. I found the cast of characters well-drawn despite their stereotypical reality. Middle schoolers who can't count to ten or write or read at all are shuffled along by the awful Mrs. Brown (whose main claim to fame and discipline and ongoing employment are two named belts, used to strap wayward kids) and a horrific tendency to "cotton to" the white administrators. Conroy's attempt to find ways to motivate and engage the kids - to get them off the island - were resounding, despite the fact that they were, by his admission, driven by his ego and need to succeed.
The beauty of the tideland island and the vociferousness of its inhabitants are clearly rendered. And the desire to help kids find ways beyond what they know is telling.(less)

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Nov 18, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 4 of 5 stars

I became interested in reading this book after reading Pat Conroy's recent memoir of his life. The book talks about the months in 1969 and 1970 that Conroy taught at a small black school on Yamacraw Island, South Carolina.
Conroy was appalled at the lack of knowledge of the students (grade 5 to grade 8) that he was responsible for. Many could not read, or do simple math. They lacked knowledge of geography, history, and science. Conroy had taught high school before and so was not prepared with all...more

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Sep 11, 2012 Jesse Cozean rated it 5 of 5 stars

Pat Conroy is certainly one of my favorite authors and certainly one of the best true writers alive today. The Water is Wide is, in my opinion, his most accessible book, based on his experiences as a white man teacher black students in a neglected, backwater island school.

It is a powerful story, told by a fantastic storyteller, that seems to resonate with nearly everyone who reads it. The struggle of the young protagonist to change the world – or at least his tiny piece of it – is familiar to u...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Jacob rated it 1 of 5 stars

You can't judge a book by it's cover, right? As a kid in the 80's I saw the cover layout of Pat Conroy books at the beach and on airplanes - the serious Miami Vice font and 'realistic' 80's drawings of scenes, and knew he wasn't anywhere near as cool as Jay McInerney.

Mom was moving recently and as I pulled a few books off her shelves she said, "You should read some Pay Conroy, you'd like him." I was just tired (buzzed) enough to not disagree and accepted The Water is Wide ($4.50 in the US, $5.5...more

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Feb 26, 2011 Chuck rated it 3 of 5 stars

In this autobiographical account, Pat Conroy deftly chronicles his year as a primary school teacher on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. Confronted with obstacles ranging from appallingly illiterate students and initially suspicious parents, to obstreperous colleagues, self-satisfied administrators, and the usual school politics, Conroy nevertheless managed to introduce his young pupils to a world beyond Yamacraw. Although their mastery of fundamental skills improved only marginal...more In this autobiographical account, Pat Conroy deftly chronicles his year as a primary school teacher on Yamacraw Island off the coast of South Carolina. Confronted with obstacles ranging from appallingly illiterate students and initially suspicious parents, to obstreperous colleagues, self-satisfied administrators, and the usual school politics, Conroy nevertheless managed to introduce his young pupils to a world beyond Yamacraw. Although their mastery of fundamental skills improved only marginally, their sense of self seemed to develop more significantly. Not surprisingly, Conroy lasted only one year on the job, drummed out by Dr. Henry Piedmont, a good ol' boy installed as the school superintendent.

Conroy provides a candid portrayal of his shift away from a racist perspective, acquired at home and reinforced by his early education in segregated schools. After graduating from The Citadel, he returned to teach at the (no longer segregated) high school from which he had graduated. The assassination of Martin Luther King during that period was a pivotal moment for Conroy. Not only did it involve the senseless death of someone whom he had begun to admire, but Conroy's subsequent interactions with both blacks and whites also proved to be instructive. Not long after King's death, he applied for the job on Yamacraw.

During his year as a Yamacraw teacher, Conroy honed his natural propensity to challenge authority, and he did not go quietly from his position. He first appealed his dismissal to the school board, and subsequently took his case to a court trial. But the cards were clearly stacked against a young idealist, perceived as a rabble-rouser who threatened the establishment. Unfortunately manipulated in building the dismissal case against Conroy was his black Yamacraw colleague, Mrs. Brown, whose primary educational mission was to instill no-nonsense basics reinforced by a leather strap, and whose main social-political goal was to please her white superiors. Unlike the school children who came to take some pride in their blackness, Mrs. Brown seemingly would have preferred to be white.

Conroy is an engaging writer who brings humor and compassion to the page. He has a good ear for dialect, good notes on his joyful interactions with students, and a well-developed sense of the absurd.(less)

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Feb 09, 2011 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-books

Pat Conroy grew up in a South Carolina town where segregation was the norm. After graduating from an all-white high school, Pat went to The Citadel to study. He became a teacher in South Carolina. In 1968, when his idea to join the Peace Corps didn't pan out, he decided to take on a unique challenge. He became a teacher on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina.

In The Water is Wide, Conroy tells the story of his year teaching on the impoverished Yamacraw Island (for some reason he do...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Star rated it 5 of 5 stars

I think I first fell in love with Pat Conroy after reading this particular book. As a native South Carolinian, I thought I understood it fully the first time I read it. I thought his experience was something that was in the distant past and something that would never touch me or the students I would teach. ( I read this book about 20 years ago the first time.)

Then, we moved to a different part of the state and the teaching position there--well, it was more like working on a mission field. It w...more I think I first fell in love with Pat Conroy after reading this particular book. As a native South Carolinian, I thought I understood it fully the first time I read it. I thought his experience was something that was in the distant past and something that would never touch me or the students I would teach. ( I read this book about 20 years ago the first time.)

Then, we moved to a different part of the state and the teaching position there--well, it was more like working on a mission field. It was one of the poorest parts of the state and the disparity in school districts and state funding was (and still is) disgraceful. Lawsuits were fought for several years over funding, a documentary was made, and when the judge made his decision, nothing changed. The teachers who teach in those poorest areas are the people who make the difference everyday in those students' lives.

Which brings me back to this book by Pat COnroy. It's beautifully written, passionate, and true. Not only should all educators read this book, everyone should read this book and ask themselves some serious questions. While race relations have moved forward in our country, is there still a bias in where dollars are spent? (Yes--in many parts of the country and in the inner cities. I can name a few counties in SC and I'm sure in other parts of the nation where unemployment was in the double digits long before our economic meltdown.) Then, another question, are teacher salaries lower because the overwhelming number of teachers are women? (Yes, again.)

I've always seen this book as a call for people to be better and treat each other better. It also shows the need for teachers to find a way to relate to students. I've taught where those community relationships were essential, and where there are definite boundaries. Conroy inspires me to be a better person and to try to reach my students.

I do think it's harder for people to understand the depths of this book if you've never dealt with people in the cycle of generational poverty. (less)

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Dec 29, 2010 Dr. Lin Stepp rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my favorite Pat Conroy book. The book was made into a movie later called Conrack - which was also good - although the book was better. Many of the experiences in this book are pat's own - from teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island and for being fired for his unconventional teaching practices. Pat paints a poignant picture of the changing landscape for blacks in the 40s-60s - and of the changes going on in the nation about how children learn and h...more

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Dec 27, 2009 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Conroy, a successful novelist, spent a year teaching on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina. The year was the 1969-70 school year and the island populated by highly disadvantaged sea islanders, mostly African-American with a handful of custodial whites who run the island and its limited services. Conroy, in his young twenties, a relatively recent graduate from The Citadel, had taught high school on the mainland for a couple of years. He is shocked by the impact of the historical m...more Conroy, a successful novelist, spent a year teaching on an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina. The year was the 1969-70 school year and the island populated by highly disadvantaged sea islanders, mostly African-American with a handful of custodial whites who run the island and its limited services. Conroy, in his young twenties, a relatively recent graduate from The Citadel, had taught high school on the mainland for a couple of years. He is shocked by the impact of the historical malign neglect represented by the two room school house on Yamacraw—of course segregated until a few years before by policy and during Conroy’s moment by the demographics of the island. It is an engaging, if self-centered tale, written in the immediate wake of Conroy’s termination after a year and a month or so on the job, where he stirs things up by trying to broaden the horizons of his 18 students. He takes them on field trips to Trick or Treat in Beaufort, South Carolina, to Washington, D.C. to visit the nation’s capital with all its monuments, museums, and most impressively, its zoo. He fights with the other teacher, also the principal, and the county educational leaders, all of whom see satisfied with a traditional approach to instruction, one heavy on textbook drills and corporal punishment that nonetheless leaves several of Conroy’s older students unable to read or even recite the alphabet.

Conroy himself admits a journey from casual but eager racist as a teen to bleeding heart liberal by the time of his teaching career. Why it’s not explored or why the children and their families don’t provide inspiration for a more examined understanding of their situation isn’t clear. The book is too much Conroy in the moment, mitigated but not redeemed by self-deprecating admissions of his too passionate, too insufferable assuredness. The prose is mostly pedestrian colloquial (he uses “crap” way too much), but quick moving and sometimes beautiful. On the Washington road trip, one of his students asks about the lines on the road, something Conroy, like all of us perhaps, takes for granted. “To Jasper, who was accustomed to unpaved roads, they represented something strange, unexplained, and beyond his framework of experience. For the rest of the trip Barbara and I decoded road signs, billboards, and numbers painted on bridges and overpasses. Things I had not noticed for ten years now assumed great significance. I regretted that I could not be making this trip with the freshness of insight and beautiful innocence of Jasper and the others. I regretted that I was old, that I could no longer appreciate the education afforded by an American highway, and that I could not grasp the mystery of a single line painted down a road going north.” I regretted that there weren’t more passages like that and that Conroy passed on an opportunity to truly bear witness to a unique time, place, and culture. The real Yamacraw Island is Daufuskie Island, an island between the city of Savannah, Georgia, and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, that like its neighbor has since become a resort island. Conroy’s goal was to do whatever he could to help his students see a way off the island but larger forces conspired more effectively to achieve that goal. The Water Is Wide is an entertaining relic of a former time that might have been much more.(less)

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Aug 24, 2009 Sidna Bookout rated it 5 of 5 stars

What can I say? I LOVE Pat Conroy's writing! In My Losing Season the way he describes a basketball game is pure poetry. While I was hanging about the local bookseller (as opposed to a book store) waiting for Conroy to write another book, I realized I had never read The Water is Wide. I don't know how I missed a Conroy book. I bought a copy and devoured it as soon as I got home! After having read all his other books and knowing his family history, it was an interesting read. He wrote this book be...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Rhonda rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-fiction

I didn't much care for this book when I read it, not because the unorthodox spirit of teaching was so rampant, but because I didn't think it provided functional answers to the education problem. On the other hand, the creative and unorthodox manner of teaching, that's hard to dislike and I wish we had more teachers who thought this way and could teach in a more unstructured way.
I read this book thoroughly angry with the school superintendent and the whole town for that matter. I demanded that t...more

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Apr 11, 2009 Julianne rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book about a white male teacher assigned to teach eighteen black children on a remote island of South Carolina in 1969-70. It is about poverty, ignorance, fear, tradition, segregation, and a great lack of hope. Which all creates a great lack of vision on the part of all the black characters.

Because I am a teacher, I was fascinated by the characters -- Conroy, Mrs. Brown, the children, their parents. Becaue I am just younger than him, I could relate to his optimism and naivete. He want...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Laurie Grove rated it 5 of 5 stars

This amazing book is a based on the author's experience teaching for a year on what was then a remote island off South Carolina back in 1969. His students didn't even know there island was part of the USA or who the president was at the time.The author became very immersed in his student's lives, searching for and discovering whatever means he could to accommodate their capabilities, taking them on field trips and showing them things American cities,like Washington DC, for example. I thought it...more

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May 04, 2013 Vickilynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was recently the privileged guest of a dinner cooked by Sallie Ann Robinson. Sallie was one of Pat Conroy's students and is portrayed in this book. She is a Gullah chef and cookbook author. Her cookbook is available here- http://sallieanncooks.ning.com/

Sallie's memories of living on Daufuskie Island (the real Yamacraw) are what made me read 'The Water is Wide'.

Pat Conroy is one of the greatest writers of our time. This book gave me an entirely new perspective on the author I heard speak at th...more

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Jul 22, 2012 Kirsti rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: anger, memoir, nonfiction, wish-it-had-been-fiction

Before Pat Conroy was a famous novelist, he was a high-school teacher who got turned down for the Peace Corps. This is his account of the Peace Corps position he more or less made up for himself--teaching eighteen poor, ignored, illiterate or near-illiterate students on an isolated island. He was an enthusiastic though flawed teacher facing racism from some (but not all) whites and from a few black people as well. Conroy's students thought the first president was John F. Kennedy, believed the ea...more

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Aug 10, 2010 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

The prose of Conroy's autobio is embracing me as do all his novels. I find myself smiling with each turn-of-the-page for any number of witty turn-of-phrases. One prime example of why I love reading Conroy appears on page 14, as he describes one of his dearest friends (who happened to be a Jew), and the reasons why their personalities clicked in the late-sixties, "We were inseparable from the beginning. We agreed with each other that Vietnam was intolerable, that the South had shit on the heads o...more

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Nov 14, 2010 Tenille Shade rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: professional-reading

My wonderful friend Penny is working on her mid-management degree, and a professor assigned this book for a project. She suggested I read it, and I am so glad I did! Pat Conroy is a remarkable author, and after finishing the book I have a new respect for the educators who lived through the desegregation of the South. The kids of Yamacraw Island were blessed to have this man as a teacher for a short period during a disturbing part of American history. The effects of background knowledge on learni...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wasn't expecting to like this book club selection much -- it's old (1972) and was even made into a Hallmark TV movie 6 or 7 years ago. Boy, was I wrong! So much about Pat Conroy's experience resonated with me -- growing up in the 50-60's with all the social changes that integration, assassinations and Vietnam foisted upon our naivete. His hyperbolic word choices and descriptions of our idealistic journeys cracked me up -- trying to decide just WHICH continent to save was the hardest part of ap...more

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Dec 01, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

I am definitely a fan of Pat Conroy's writing, especially the two works of fiction I've previously read. I had mixed feelings throughout this one. First, this is a younger Conroy, one who was a few years away from "The Great Santini" and several years from the magnificent "The Lords of Discipline." The author also has a tough time keeping himself from being first billed in a story that really should be about the island and children he taught for a year. This is more of a memoir of himself than a...more I am definitely a fan of Pat Conroy's writing, especially the two works of fiction I've previously read. I had mixed feelings throughout this one. First, this is a younger Conroy, one who was a few years away from "The Great Santini" and several years from the magnificent "The Lords of Discipline." The author also has a tough time keeping himself from being first billed in a story that really should be about the island and children he taught for a year. This is more of a memoir of himself than a chronicling of events.

A friend of mine told me that this book was one of the main reasons she became a teacher. I have to say that I'm half-surprised that anyone would want to become a teacher after this book. I realize by now you're thinking this sounds like a review less than three stars. Not so fast. The story is indeed inspirational. Impoverished, isolated black children mostly descended from slaves on a dying island fell under the author's tutelage for a year in the late 1960s. To say these kids were undereducated is like saying liquid nitrogen is a little cool. Of 18 children, none of them knew the name of the ocean bordering their South Carolina island, none knew the current president, the name of the country or state they lived in. Many couldn't count to 10, sign their own name, recite the alphabet and many other rudimentary skills. Oh yeah, these aren't infants but fifth graders mixed in.

The story is, and should be, about the author's creative improvised tactics to get the kids excited about learning, and about the ways he exposed them to life outside the island. The fascinating guests he introduced them to, their first night of trick-or-treating, a trip to see the Harlem Globetrotters, a trip to Washington D.C. - are all wonderful.

Unfortunately, the story that ultimately dominates (and therefore makes me surprised this book could inspire to teach) is how the educational system oppresses creative teachers. Conroy's tactics infuriate his supervisor Mrs. Brown, a black principal whose only aim is to follow the rules to the letter, please her supervisors in Beaufort and deal with the classroom by insulting and physically beating her students. Her philosophy is that education is separate from fun. Then there are all the obstacles presented by the school board members, who all think a new athletic field for the all-white high school is more important than basic education for the seriously needful Yamacraw Island inhabitants. The book becomes about his fight to retain his job against the powers that be.

For every minute I was inspired in this book, I was infuriated the other. Devout fans of Pat Conroy and people interested in civil rights history will want to check this out. People wanting to try this author for the first time would be better served starting with one of his other fiction titles.(less)

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Sep 24, 2011 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Conroy is an incredible writer and this memoir of his early teaching experience with a group of children on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina proved his skill early on his writing career. As a novice teacher, Conroy did not have a knowledge base of activities that are successful with older children who are so far behind that they don't even know the alphabet, but he did learn how to connect with them in quite unique ways, with a strong desire and drive to bring them into the 21st c...more

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Jan 29, 2009 Holli rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2009

On my own, I would never have picked up this book, but my book group selected it for our February 2009 read and so my journey with Pat Conroy began. This memoir documents Conroy's year of teaching grades 6-12 on Yamacraw Island, off the coast of SC, in the 1960s. Conroy's 18 students were a sad case; many of them were illiterate, couldn't write their own names, couldn't count to five, and were being pushed through an educational system by administrators who pushed them under the rug.

Conroy's sto...more

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Jun 19, 2010 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pat Conroy has humor and insight that he can direct anywhere--even at himself. He is uncompromising, and must pick fights and expose what he sees as injustice, believing that the exposure itself is a way of trumping the power of the people perpetuating the injustice by the condemnation of a greater society. At least, so it seems to me after reading "The Lords of Discipline" and "The Water is Wide."

I hope my sister reads this one day. I would love to hear her thoughts after her years teaching in...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

My dad sent me a copy of this book in the depths of the school year and I was reluctant to read a memoir about teaching impoverished kids for fear it would just be reliving some of the past nine months. Instead, I got lost in the rolicing lyricism of Conroy's first book. Consider me an illiterate southerner, as it was also my first time reading anything of his longer than an essay. The book isn't really about teaching; it's about Conroy becoming a member of the Yamacraw Island community and refl...more My dad sent me a copy of this book in the depths of the school year and I was reluctant to read a memoir about teaching impoverished kids for fear it would just be reliving some of the past nine months. Instead, I got lost in the rolicing lyricism of Conroy's first book. Consider me an illiterate southerner, as it was also my first time reading anything of his longer than an essay. The book isn't really about teaching; it's about Conroy becoming a member of the Yamacraw Island community and reflecting a vision of entrenched southern coastal poverty through the prism of a brilliant, gregarious, idealistic, bombastic 20-something in 1969.

Yamacraw is a barrier island on the coast of South Carolina right where the Savannah River hits the Atlantic. If you've never driven to the beaches around Hilton Head or Sea Island, it's hard to describe the way a relentless sun, sandy soil, and dry stands of white pines can magnify the troubles of region with only the most fitful of industries. In short: it's poor, and it's hot, and that's just the coastal plains before the islands. In the book, Yamacraw still exists in a sort of post-Reconstruction purgatory: there is a black majority kept in economic and educational apartheid by a minority of whites. There is more or less no work on the island, given the demise of the oyster industry; and Conroy finds that the middle schoolers in his charge are illiterate, innumerate, and have never left the tiny island.

The white school district administrators are of course pleased when Conroy asks for a job teaching there after he never hears back from the Peace Corps. But if becomes clear over the course of the story that they have no interest in Conroy's reform efforts. So while this isn't really focused on teaching, it's a fascinating window into what segregation still did to southern blacks more than a decade after Brown v. Board. It captures a distinctive part of the Deep South at a historical inflection point, and with wit, charm, and majesty. I'll be digging into Conroy more for certain.(less)

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About Pat Conroy

Pat Conroy is the New York Times bestselling author of two memoirs and seven novels, including The Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and The Lords of Discipline. Born the eldest of seven children in a rigidly disciplined military household, he attended the Citadel, the military college of South Carolina. He briefly became a schoolteacher (which he chronicled in his memoir The Water Is Wide) befo...more

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