More Light to Read

On the third Thursday evening of each month, people gather at the Ashland Kroc Center to explore and celebrate the written word. In this writer’s group, we study the various tools of the trade, use writing prompts to practice our skills, and applaud the small successes of our members as our words find a home on the pages of newspapers, magazines and books.

From time to time, we speak of an author whose writing has been influential, or of a book that’s especially meaningful to us. Retired pastor Tom Snyder recently suggested a small volume available from the Ashland Public Library, “A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life” by Pat Conroy, and what a gem it has proven to be. I’ve been a Conroy fan for years, first discovering the passion of the southern novelist in “Beach Music,” jotting down these words that resonated deeply: “For without music, life is a journey through a desert that has not ever heard the rumor of God.” As I often have over the years, I then sought out the author’s other works, reading through the rest of his novels, including “The Great Santini,” “The Water is Deep,” and “The Prince of Tides.”

Now, more than fifteen years after my binge-reading of Conroy’s novels, I was meeting up with Pat Conroy again, this time through his words as assembled by his widow, Cassandra King. As I read through the collected blog posts, essays and speeches, I was welcomed into the world of author book tours “when I’ll be running my mouth and signing my books until I’m mercifully released to return to my writing desk,” and of “the first itch of the novel I’m supposed to write.”

I was pleased to discover that since my early acquaintance with Conroy’s work, he’d written another novel, “South of Broad,” which I checked out of the library on Monday. Opening its pages on Tuesday, I started to read. With a column deadline looming and a garden begging to be weeded, I kept reading. With a twinge of guilt, I read on, rationalizing my inability to put the book down by convincing myself that part of the work of a writer is to read. I turned the last of the 512 pages on Wednesday evening.

Reaching the end of my marathon read, I was sad to bid farewell to the carefully crafted characters who infuse Conroy’s writing. Leo King and his high school friends, including the twins and the orphans, had “grabbed me by the collar,” and I sensed what Conroy explained in his essay, “Why I Write”: “Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends.”

What is it about the world of story that keeps my bedside light on until 3 a.m.? Here’s how Conroy explains it: “Writers of the world, if you’ve got a story, I want to hear it. My soul will dance with pleasure, and it’ll change the quality of all my waking hours. You will hearten me and brace me up for the hard days . . . I reach for a story to save my own life. Always. It clears the way for me and makes me resistant to all the false promises signified by the ring of power. In every great story, I encounter a head-on collision with self and imagination.”

In Tolkien’s Middle Earth, J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, John Grisham’s Camino Island, Louise Penny’s Three Pines, or Conroy’s beloved city of Charleston, we’re led to new neighborhoods and new companions who will remain with us for many years to come. Even if no travel is on our horizon, as Dr. Seuss explains, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Jeannette Walls tells us, “One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by.” I plan to take advantage of the extra light, the backyard hammock, and the lure of story in the summer of 2017, and I hope you’ll join me in a “head-on collision with self and imagination.” Happy reading!