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My Losing Season A Memoir Pat Conroy 9780553381900 Books

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My Losing Season A Memoir Pat Conroy 9780553381900 Books

I love Pat Conroy. I mourn his death and wish he could have lived another fifty years, bringing us his gorgeous prose. My Losing Season, his memoir of the 1966-67 Citadel basketball team on which he played as a senior at that institution is classic Conroy. I have to admit, not knowing the game of basketball very well, I got bogged down just a bit as he described each of the games of that season. But the book is more about him and the human condition than it is about a game. Filled with Conroy’s wonderfully evocative metaphors—nobody is better at them—the book proposes the idea that perhaps we learn more from our failures than our successes. As we get to know his team members and his irascible coach, we want to reach out to each. And as Conroy fills us in at the end of the book on these characters thirty years later, we share their triumphs and tribulations in life. And, of course, hovering over it all is Conroy’s abusive father and long-suffering mother. We grow to understand these two, but I personally never grew to like the man, although Conroy says he came to love his dad unconditionally in the man’s later years. Perhaps that acceptance, for me, is for another book, and hopefully Conroy accomplished that in The Death of Santini, the sequel to his novel The Great Santini, which featured a leading character very much like, but different somewhat, his real father Don Conroy. We shall see, as I’ve just ordered that book. But with Conroy’s death, we are deeply cut; no one can fill his shoes, so we must be content with the body of work he left us.


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My Losing Season A Memoir Pat Conroy 9780553381900 Books Reviews

If the reader is familiar with Mr. Conroy's work then you know much of his material is taken from his horrible childhood. His 6'4", physically and verbally abusive, Marine dad made his and his siblings' lives a living hell. The memoir reenforces the highly dysfunctional nature of his family as well as life at the draconian Citadel in the mid-1960s. The core of this book is about how basketball was an integral part of the author's identity from age 9 until he graduated from the Citadel. Also, besides his teammates, his college coach, Mel Thompson, plays a big part in this story. Mr. Thompson was still alive when the author's book was published and if the former coach read the sucker, I can't imagine he was too pleased with the depiction of him.

The book, however, is not just a story about basketball, but Mr. Conroy's wonderful game descriptions took me back to when I used to play. Their second game against VMI, which went into four overtimes, was an especially edge-of-your-seat chapter. The book has a lot of heart. The dialogue between the players sounds very authentic. I felt it had the right balance of suspense, insight and humor by the brutally honest Mr. Conroy. At the ripe age of 51, I still don't understand the coaching approach of using fear and intimidation to guide players. These sort of a-holes view sports as war and they're the tin-pot dicators on massive ego trips. Mr. Conroy also shows how insecure people like Mel Thompson leave lasting scars on many players well into their golden years. Instead of helping shape boys into men, they hinder such development because they themselves have never grown up. Mr. Conroy's coming-of-age story is a truly wonderful memoir for anyone who enjoys or enjoyed basketball.
"My Losing Season" is a powerful book that uses the author's losing 1966-1967basketball season at The Citadel to explore whether one learns more from winning or from losing. From the opening line, "I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one," to the end, Conroy has a gift for memorable, descriptive writing.

I should preface my review by stating I don't enjoy basketball, which includes playing it growing up and now watching it live or on TV. In High School P.E., they nicknamed me "The Fouler" because I never made the transition from football where it is a good thing to knock people down and take the ball away! With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it is so much more than a story about the game of basketball. This is a memoir of Pat Conroy's life from the time he first picked up a basketball at age nine to his adult years where he became a successful writer. But even more than that, it is compelling story about endurance, hustle, and following one's dreams.

While I felt great distress as Pat Conroy described his violent upbringing at the hands of an abusive father, I thrilled in the way God always seemed to provide for Pat. I also valued the lessons Pat learned from his losing season, the special memories he shared with his teammates, and how that season impacted all the players.
Pat Conroy was not a very good writer, but he will give you a lot to relate to if you have an abusive parent.

He went from an abusive father to an abusive and trashy basketball coach. He doesn't seem to realize that's normal. Abuse victims have a way of finding new abusers.

The basketball material is mind-numbingly boring, unless you're a fan. There is a ton of content about games. Tedious. I read it for the material on the dysfunctional Conroy family and Citadel Bulldogs
I love Pat Conroy. I mourn his death and wish he could have lived another fifty years, bringing us his gorgeous prose. My Losing Season, his memoir of the 1966-67 Citadel basketball team on which he played as a senior at that institution is classic Conroy. I have to admit, not knowing the game of basketball very well, I got bogged down just a bit as he described each of the games of that season. But the book is more about him and the human condition than it is about a game. Filled with Conroy’s wonderfully evocative metaphors—nobody is better at them—the book proposes the idea that perhaps we learn more from our failures than our successes. As we get to know his team members and his irascible coach, we want to reach out to each. And as Conroy fills us in at the end of the book on these characters thirty years later, we share their triumphs and tribulations in life. And, of course, hovering over it all is Conroy’s abusive father and long-suffering mother. We grow to understand these two, but I personally never grew to like the man, although Conroy says he came to love his dad unconditionally in the man’s later years. Perhaps that acceptance, for me, is for another book, and hopefully Conroy accomplished that in The Death of Santini, the sequel to his novel The Great Santini, which featured a leading character very much like, but different somewhat, his real father Don Conroy. We shall see, as I’ve just ordered that book. But with Conroy’s death, we are deeply cut; no one can fill his shoes, so we must be content with the body of work he left us.