Reviews for The Great Santini

The average rating for The Great Santini based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-10-10 00:00:00 David Derrick This is the only Conroy book that I've ever read. It's been 25 years ago. I've not read it since. This thing broke my heart. It really did. It took me years to dispel the pain of these people. All these years later, I can't remember their names, but I still recall the pain. I've never read Pat Conroy since then. I'm probably doing myself a disservice, but I don't like being heartbroke. Once bitten, twice shy.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-05-04 00:00:00 Len Oram Pat Conroy is one of those writers who can write only one story (John Irving and Amy Tan come to mind, as well). Conroy seems obsessed with the idea of a Southern family trying to navigate the high school experiences of a sensitive son and a smartass daughter. Again there is the angry, abusive father and the rather ineffective mother who is mostly concerned about what the neighbors think. Again there are themes of forgiveness and redemption and racial tension. Again someone gets raped. Again there are pages of descriptions of high school sports. What's different about this novel is that there are a lot of plot points that are dropped and never picked up again. What happens after the girl is raped? Why should the reader care about the high school basketball tryouts? A thorough editing and pruning would make for a much shorter book, but one that is cleaner and much more fluid. The action is too bogged down by these tangential subplots. That said, Conroy's descriptions are amazing, as in other books he's written. However, I'd start with The Prince of Tides and not this one.