ARTS AND HUMANITIES: Visiting Pat Conroy's Beaufort (2024)

“I am a patriot of a singular geography on the planet; I speak of my country religiously; I am proud of its landscape. I walk through the traffic of cities cautiously, always nimble and on the alert, because my heart belongs in the marshlands… I was shaped by life on the river, part child, part sacristan of tides.” With these words, Tom Wingo, the protagonist in Pat Conroy’s memorable novel “The Prince of Tides,” introduces himself to the reader.

No writer is more identified with the Carolina Lowcountry than Pat Conroy, whose 11 novels and memoirs are imbued with the sights, sounds and smells of that region of our state. It is fitting, therefore, that following the writer’s untimely death in 2016, the citizens of Beaufort, Conroy’s adopted hometown, should have decided to establish a literary center in his honor in the heart of that scenic coastal community.

Earlier this spring, while attending events related to the 2024 induction ceremony of the South Carolina Academy of Authors, I spent a weekend in Beaufort where I paid homage to Pat Conroy in a variety of ways.

On a sunny Friday afternoon, my traveling companion Michael Budd and I took a Pat Conroy Golf Cart Tour. Happily ensconced in an eight-seater, we whizzed through the tree-lined streets, pausing at various locations where the author had lived or where scenes were filmed from the four movies based on his novels. The longest stop on the tour is the National Cemetery dedicated in 1863; both of Conroy's parents, his father Donald, nicknamed the Great Santini, and his mother Frances or "Peggy," are interred here.

That evening, the distinguished novelist and expert on all things Charleston, Harlan Greene was reading at the Pat Conroy Literary Center from his new book "The Real Rainbow Row"; and we had a chance to explore the building before the program began.

Established in 2016, the center is located on Bladen Street, only two blocks from Bay Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. Administered by my friend Jonathan Haupt, the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, the facility serves two main purposes. It is both a repository of Conroy-related memorabilia and the headquarters for a host of educational initiatives — author readings, workshops, retreats, tours — all intended to extend Conroy’s legacy as a writer, teacher and mentor.

Visitors to the center can expect to find a three-room main gallery flush with items of significance in Conroy’s life and career. In one of the rooms to the left of the main entrance, for example, one can find Conroy's writing desk from his Fripp Island residence. Visitors are encouraged to take a seat at that venerable writing table, and I myself was not immune to that invitation. Visiting authors, like Harlan Greene, also customarily sign copies of their books on that noteworthy piece of furniture.

Posters advertising “The Great Santini” and the other three films adapted from Conroy novels — “The Water is Wide,” “The Lords of Discipline” and “The Prince of Tides” — adorn the walls of the central hallway. Some of Conroy’s many awards along with letters, photographs and copies of the author’s printed works are also on display.

Only the second site in our state to be designated an American Library Association Literary Landmark — the most recent is the grave of Aiken's very own 19th-century poet James Matthewes Legare in the St. Thaddeus churchyard — the Pat Conroy Literary Center is well worth a visit by anyone planning to be in the Beaufort area.

Another increasingly popular Conroy-related place of pilgrimage is his gravesite on St. Helena Island. Located in Saint Helena Memorial Gardens on Ernest Drive a little over a mile from the Penn Center, the author’s final resting place has become a magnet for thousands of Conroy readers who visit his grave and frequently leave mementos, including seashells and writing implements. I added a pen to one of the two receptacles that bracket the granite memorial emblazoned with a quote from "The Prince of Tides": "My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call." Given the author’s ardent support of civil rights, it is fitting that he be buried on land so significantly tied to the Gullah culture.

Tom Mack, Ph.D.

USC Distinguished Professor Emeritus

Recipient, Governor’s Award in the Humanities

Nominations Coordinator, Board of Governors, South Carolina Academy of Authors

Chair Emeritus, Board of Directors, South Carolina Humanities

Columnist, “Arts and Humanities,” AIKEN STANDARD

Freelance Reviewer, POST AND COURIER COLUMBIA/FREE TIMES

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