The Lost Prince

A Search for Pat Conroy

By: Michael Mewshaw

Narrated by: Bob Souer

Length: 7 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

Pat Conroy was America's poet laureate of family dysfunction. A larger-than-life character and the author of such classics as The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, Conroy was remembered by everybody for his energy, his exuberance, and his self-lacerating humor.

Michael Mewshaw's The Lost Prince is an intimate memoir of his friendship with Pat Conroy, one that involves their families and those days in Rome when they were both young - when Conroy went from being a popular regional writer to an internationally best-selling author. Family snapshots beautifully illustrate that time. Shortly before his 49th birthday, Conroy telephoned Mewshaw to ask a terrible favor. With great reluctance, Mewshaw did as he was asked - and never saw Pat Conroy again.

Although they never managed to reconcile their differences completely, Conroy later urged Mewshaw to write about "me and you and what happened... i know it would cause much pain to both of us. but here is what that story has that none of your others have." The Lost Prince is Mewshaw's fulfillment of a promise.

©2019 Michael Mewshaw (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Extraordinary

An extraordinary book about an extraordinarily complicated man. This book about Pat Conroy by someone who knew Pat well was as riveting as any of Conroy’s novels.

Loving ode to a fascinating friendship

The Lost Prince is exceptional and I highly recommend it. I listened to the entire book in one sitting, straight through, without stopping. (Yes, it’s that gripping!) Mewshaw’s prose is exquisite and he paints such an insightful and vivid picture of his relationship with Pat Conroy. To help tell the story, Mewshaw weaves in correspondence between the two friends and other previously unpublished material. The Lost Prince is a must for fans of Conroy, as well as a must for anyone who has ever loved or lost a friend.

Amazing, beautiful, sad

What a gift that the author shared this journey with us! I really loved it!

Troubling

Why would anyone take the time to write a book about such a flawed subject? It is ultimately pathetic that , while protesting his love for Pat Conroy, the author ultimately throws his friend under the bus by revealing the private conversations, personal demons, and unflattering traits of his subject. It left a bad taste in my mouth.

Of course, an untreated alcoholic is going to be a shithead. Did we need to spend 7 hours listening to an illustration of this truth?

Anyhow, anyone who makes a living documenting their celebrity writer friends is a vampire.

I came away no wiser about Pat Conroy but I do recall enjoying Conroy's books so he has overcome his biographer.

Boe fort? Please correct this.

I loved this book. I loved the reader. I am a native South Carolinian. I am sure that Pat Conroy Is rolling over in his grave every time the reader comes to the name Beaufort. It is pronounced bju fort not boe fort. Where was the editor? Can this be corrected so that other listeners do not cringe as this mispronunciation?

Wonderful story of friendship and heartache

Fantastic memoir with great writing and a fascinating story of friendship between two writers who shared difficult childhoods; it reveals so much about both men, including their genius and heartache, but mostly their enduring bond.

Pronunciation sucks

Italian sounded right, southern place name WRONG! two cities spelled the same,pronounced very differently.

I adore Pat Conroy

Because I have always enjoyed the work of Pat Conroy, I am always fascinated by his back story. I think I would have enjoyed this so much more if I had read the book vs listening to it.

I found it distracting that Bob Souer mispronounced Beaufort repeatedly. As Pat’s “hometown” it featured prominently in the narrative. Perhaps a few minutes research, a quick call to anyone local, would have been worth the time.

Enjoyed it 'til the knives came out

Listened enjoyably to most of this book, even knowing there was an estrangement between these two friends ahead. Eventual distance, even estrangement, is not all that uncommon between longtime friends, especially friends with childhood trauma and adult alcoholism... although only Conroy is spoken about in this book as an alcoholic, as far as I recall. I may be wrong.

The book became wildly uncomfortable, though, and frankly, pissy, during the last hour and a half, as the author seems to take Conroy's supposed suggestion that Mewshaw write about this period of estrangement between the two - and runs with it, resulting in private letters between Conroy and one of his daughters being included, and threads of seeming bitterness and possibly professional jealousy from Mewshaw growing stronger and stronger. Is there vindictiveness, too? I began to wonder... to the point the whole thing begins to feel tainted with... ick, and a wish I'd not bothered with this book at all.

Want to hear about horrible behavior from a later-stage alcoholic who is also a beloved public figure to many, and is no longer here to reply or defend? It's all here.

Also a trauma warning: only a small bit, and it's later in the book (two thirds through, maybe?), but there's incredibly graphic content of child sexual abuse described within. Did it belong and was it necessary to include this? I don't know. I hope permission was given by this now grown child, but if it were my family, I'd be horrified a friend - godparent? - included any of it in his own memoir.

I do wish the tone of this book had steered clear of the murky, distressing swamp it eventually fell into. A good portion of this book was interesting and enjoyable. As someone once said to me after a close friendship grew estranged: "Just work on processing and letting go, and for gawd's sakes, don't blab around about how awful your former friends are. The mud always seems to cling to the teller, no matter how innocent/victimized they feel they are."