Does anyone else hate Pat Conroy?

[Sara]

A few years ago I was living in Namibia and my friend sent me a Pat Conroy book--Beach Music. I have seen some of the movies made out of his books, and they were okay, not really my thing... but man, did I ever hate Beach Music. Did anyone notice how ALL of the characters were AMAZING at something... or somehow just "special people" and not the kind on the short bus either. . . They were all so much better than the rest of us. And the melodrama... my goodness, the U.S. South is not the center of the universe and the people there are not more colorful than other U.S. citizens no matter what Pat Conroy thinks... I cant think of many of his characters really being worthy of 400 pages...

[Clare]

I thought Beach Music stunk but I love, love, love some of Pat Conroy's other books especially The Prince of Tides. I actually carry around a quote from The Prince of Tides:
"If your parents disapprove of you and are cunning with their disapproval, there will never come a new dawn when you can become convinced of your own value. There is no fixing a damaged childhood. The best you can hope for is to make the sucker float." As a child of a very dysfunctional set of parents, I recognized the truth of this statement.
I would definitely recommend Conroy but would suggest any of his books except for Beach Music.

[Lori]

Yeah, Beach Music was definitely not his best.

[Sara]

Interesting commentaries... maybe I should give him another try then...but I think Bad1news said it exactly as I felt... Beach Music kept me reading, but it was a shameful read... kind of like getting caught by an arrogant co-worker reading a tacky magazine in line at the grocery store. Even though no one knew I was reading it, I felt sort of ashamed at myself for reading something dripping with sentimentality and hystrionics. (sorry, I am too lazy to use the spell check now.)

[Clare]

Sara, When I read Beach Music I kept thinking that Conroy's publishers must have said, "C'mon, it's time for another book." He didn't have much to say at that point so he wrote a book that wasn't very good. Try The Citadel (I think that's it) or The Prince of Tides. Reading Conroy has made me desperate to travel to the part of the country he writes about.

[Tom]

I liked THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE very much when I read it years ago, I don't know what I'd make of it now. A good involving read, characters that lived on the page, everything.

Tried to read PRINCE OF TIDES and got really annoyed, just lost interest in that Wingo family and in Conroy's over-ripe prose.

[Stephanie]

I actually mostly liked Beach Music, so after reading the postings here, I am excited to try another book by Conroy.