The Lost Prince: A Search for Pat Conroy

At heart, this fascinating memoir from Mewshaw (Sympathy for the Devil) of his friendship with the late novelist Pat Conroy is a love story. The two men found in each other a confidant and sympathetic soul with similar fears and scars born of peripatetic military family life, strict Catholic upbringings, and abusive parents, as well as a shared love of basketball and books. They met in Rome, as part of the American expatriate community in the 1980s, forming a relationship Mewshaw describes as intense, loving, and openhearted. However, he also exposes a dark underbelly to Conroy’s “hail fellow, well met” nature: his excessive drinking, his anger with one of his daughters (to whom Mewshaw was godfather) after his divorce from her mother, his tendency toward self-mythologizing, and his insecurities. Mewshaw, meanwhile, had his own personal and professional setbacks. At Mewshaw’s side through it all was his friend—until, during Conroy’s divorce, Conroy perceived Mewshaw as taking his wife’s side and broke off ties. Near the end of his life, though, the two tentatively reconnected, and Conroy urged Mewshaw to tell the story of their friendship. What could have been a maudlin, self-indulgent memory piece instead proves an honest, eminently readable look at the fraught but rewarding bond between two writers. [em](Mar.) [/em]