A review by bobbo49
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

5.0

Although I saw the movie many years ago, and have loved much of Conroy's writing, somehow I never got around to The Great Santini until now. While I felt that some of the events in the later parts of the book were not sufficiently developed, overall I loved the story and the writing. Santini himself is recognizable to me as a more extreme version of my own father from those same years - although not a Marine, nonetheless always described briefly in books as "a tough covert operator." Dad was, of course, far less physical with his children (and never with mom), but he surely ran the house in a strict manner not terribly different from Santini, and you knew better than to argue with, or challenge, him. Some of the book had me laughing out loud, or reflecting on the impacts (positive and negative) of moving every few years to a new school (including for my senior year of high school), new friends (some now life-long), new life; some had me cringing with Ben and Mary Anne. Certainly an excellent read for those of us who grew up in that time, or in that kind of transient life, or with some family similarities!