The Pat Conroy Retrospective Collection, currently on display in the Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, contains many of the works by its late namesake, a popular author known for his connection to the Lowcountry. The exhibit will remain open until March 31, and portions will be moved to the front of Thomas Cooper Library in mid-April.
The collection features 14 exhibits showcasing handwritten manuscripts, numerous photographs, first-edition books, screenplays, scrapbooks, journals, correspondence, posters, book art and other illustrations.
“I think the exhibit can easily be viewed as the celebration of his life’s work," Elizabeth Sudduth, director of the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, said. "It was part of a birthday celebration, and at that point, we were looking at what he had accomplished and we were thinking that there was more to come. At this point it’s a celebration of all he did and really of the whole man looking at his life, his friends, his loves, his own history and his work. And I think that’s all evidenced here by the material in the collection.”
The collection was curated by archivist Jessica Crouch, who listed and categorized every item from 90 boxes that came to USC in May 2014.
“The collection itself is huge and it was difficult choosing which items to include in this first exhibit," Crouch said in a news release from Thomas Cooper Library. "Now that I’ve spent time with the collection, I can see so many applications for students and researchers. Not just for research into Pat Conroy but also research into family psychology, the Civil War, the Southern literature and the relationship between Southern authors, literary history, and South Carolina history, specifically the low country."
Cases feature works from different phases in Conroy's life, such as those about his time at The Citadel as a cadet, the years he spent teaching at Daufuskie Island and his time living in Beaufort, which served as inspiration for the "Prince of Tides" and "South of Broad." One case shows how he had written about his grandmother in 2012 and how that translated into the memoir, "The Death of Santini."
Sudduth said she didn't realize how autobiographical Conroy's work was until she read "The Death of Santini."
"He doesn’t shy away from problems that people have, particularly social problems and issues," she said.
The exhibit attempts to tie all parts of Conroy's personal history together with a case that includes his juvenile writings, as far back as an autobiographical piece he wrote around fifth grade.
“You get a sense of who he was ... At that age, he already was very interested in writing, his own writing, and he was also reading an awful lot,” Sudduth said.
Many of the archives were organized by Conroy's father, Donald Conroy, who would scrapbook them. They include clippings from high school basketball, family photos, letters written home from The Citadel and letters to his family from Daufuskie Island. Conroy also wrote in a journal almost every day on his observations, making notes about things he could use in books.
“We have his journals ... you wouldn’t have this in a lot of author archives. This is our most comprehensive author archive because it includes everything from his youngest days up to the present and the arrangement we had was that any writing he did would come here. So the last novel that he was working on before his death, the work he did on that, will eventually come here,” Sudduth said.
Crouch recognizes that Conroy's life and heritage are integral parts of his writing.
“You can’t talk about Pat Conroy without talking about his relationship with his dad, his mom, and his siblings, and so a lot of the exhibit is dedicated to those relationships," she said.
Conroy spent a lot of time on the USC campus, encouraging and mentoring new and young authors, as well as working with high school students. The collection has a journal from a poetry class he took with James Dickey at the USC.
Many of his books were turned into movies and the archive has movie memorabilia relating to those, including a large poster of "The Great Santini" hung from the ceiling.