basketball

I am a big fan of Pat Conroy, and it is very good to see him finally come clean with the truth behind so much of his work. His idea with My Losing Season is that you learn much more from defeat than from victory, and to this end he uses the real stories of his family and childhood to relate to the reader the true story of his senior year at The Citadel in Charleston, and of his final basketball season there as a player. I am not a big basketball fan, but I had a very hard time putting the book down. It was very interesting to compare these actual stories with the ones in his marvelous fiction, seeing what it takes to build great writing and a great writer. I was particularly interested in how Mr. Conroy tracks down and interviews members from his old team, and how he discovers that many of them still carry the same unspoken pain from that year that he does. The self-awareness and closure the book provides is truly uplifting and inspiring. I learned a lot reading this book, both about basketball and about life. I highly recommend it.

I have read all of Pat Conroy's books. The Prince of Tides has been on the absolute top of my favorites list since it first came out. Over the years, and through his novels, it has always been in my mind that he must have had a very troubled life indeed. Aside from his obvious talent with words, writing has also been his therapy. Now, since the death of his parents, we get a view of just where he came from, and it's really not such a surprise. One suffers for the young man in his losing season, and one suffers for the middle-age man who wrote about it. It's gratifying to know that his father could reform (a bit) after reading the Great Santini. Conroy's insight into that particular basketball season, and what seeds were sown within him, shows once again his keen abilities in the art of retrospection. My only complaint, and it's a small one, is the sometimes needless play-by-play of each game of that season. It shouldn't put anyone off reading My Losing Season though, and it won't change my annual habit of reading at least one of his previous novels.

Pat Conroy is a true literary artist and like all artists he needs to take his art into places he hasn't been before. No, this is not Prince of Tides revisited; this is a different kind of book, an insightful book about athletes written by a sensitive genius, but it asks one of the same questions as Prince of Tides. It asks about survival.

Early on there is a telephone call, a friend has committed suicide. In the background children are crying. So begins the story.

Later, a teammate mentions that he always knew he would have to come back to that awful year and revisit it. Since Pat Conroy is the writer he is we are all able to go with him through all the disappointments. Who else has the stamina to tackle a subject as painful as a losing senior year?

This book is not for the weak of heart. This book hurts. Still there is great value in being able to examine losing in an age where athletes and the reality of loss are infrequently paired for public viewing.

Against the norm this book exposes a necessary truth: it isn't and never will be, all about winning.