A strong, stoical memoir, Stop-Time, published in 1967, recounts Conroy’s childhood and adolescence placed inside two narrow contemporary frames: accounts of reckless to the point of suicide/homicide driving from London to the countryside. The prologue and epilogue are both very brief but reveal an adult who should be responsible and perhaps even happy, but clearly is otherwise disturbed. Madness runs, to borrow from “Arsenic and Old Lace,” in Conroy’s family. His dad was in and out of institutions. Conroy was restless and uncertain, a smart ass without direction, but a lover of books and under the circumstances, normal. His sister was the responsible one, trying to make a path for herself out of the ruins of her father’s madness and her mother’s messy life; but near the end of his narrative of growing up she is sent home from Europe, the victim of a sudden, substantial breakdown. There is no clinical insight here—bi-polar? Schizophrenia?—just a showcasing of events. Th...more
A strong, stoical memoir, Stop-Time, published in 1967, recounts Conroy’s childhood and adolescence placed inside two narrow contemporary frames: accounts of reckless to the point of suicide/homicide driving from London to the countryside. The prologue and epilogue are both very brief but reveal an adult who should be responsible and perhaps even happy, but clearly is otherwise disturbed. Madness runs, to borrow from “Arsenic and Old Lace,” in Conroy’s family. His dad was in and out of institutions. Conroy was restless and uncertain, a smart ass without direction, but a lover of books and under the circumstances, normal. His sister was the responsible one, trying to make a path for herself out of the ruins of her father’s madness and her mother’s messy life; but near the end of his narrative of growing up she is sent home from Europe, the victim of a sudden, substantial breakdown. There is no clinical insight here—bi-polar? Schizophrenia?—just a showcasing of events. The manic London driving suggests that the narrative’s near happy ending—young Conroy, righting his life, arrives at Haverford College—is, if anything, irrelevant. So is the seeming happiness at working well and having his own family. Madness lurks like an unkillable horror movie villain. Somewhere Conroy must have found a way through this mess. He became the long-time director of the very successful Iowa Writer’s Workshop and published two respected novels. But this memoir is nothing but disturbing....less
Stop-Time: A Memoir 
