The Great Santini: A Novel

This is a wonderful novel. Published in 1976 when Conroy was 30, The Great Santini marked the debut of a talented writer and born storyteller. To those who are well acquainted with Conroy, this novel (like all his others) is autobiographical in content. This is the story of Lt. Col. Bull Meecham, United States Marine Corps fighter pilot and his family. Meecham runs his family like a squadron. His word is law and he is the ultimate authority. Any family who dare dissents from Bull's view will suffer his wrath. The novel is, at the core, a family story. Bull, his lovely wife Lillian and their four children, Ben the oldest, Mary Ann, Karen and young Matt. Ben feels all the pressure as the Colonel pushes his son to be the best and will not tolerate any backtalk. The story moves along at a fine pace and the characters are fully developed whether they are the main characters or supporting ones. It is interesting to note that it is Conroy's only novel that was written in the third person, and, unlike other first novels, it does not suffer from the standard problems that usually go with debuts. The one thing that impresses me the most is that Conroy's Marine Corps scenes ring with absolute authority. A difficult achievment for a writer who didn't serve in the Corps. No doubt he had witnessed much Marine Corps activity when going to bases in the company of his father (Col. Don Conroy, USMC Ret. dec.). Pick this book up if you can. It's a genuine slice of life book that both entertains and enlarges your view of the world.

From what Pat Conroy has said in numerous interviews, it is obvious that his novel The Great Santini is a thinly disguised autobiographical account of his own childhood as a Marine brat. High school senior Ben Meecham, Pat Conroy's fictional counterpart, is the son of a volatile Marine fighter pilot 'Bull' Meecham, whose nom de guerre is 'The Great Santini', which, by the way, was also Pat Conroy dad's nom de guerre in real life. Pat Conroy once said that his dad was Zeus and his mom was Hera, and that his first memory was of his dad laughing and hitting his mother in face while she tried to stab him with a knife. Boy, oh boy, if this novel is an accurate representation of what went on in the Conroy household, then he is right about the true identity of his parents! The Great Santini acts, according to his wife Lillian, like a living, breathing Marine recruitment poster. Santini is a man of contradictions, a man who loves his wife and his children more than anything else in the world, but you wouldn't know it from the brutal manner by which he occasionally treats them. By the way, if you saw the wonderful film adaptation of Conroy's novel, you were probably left with the impression that Santini is the only parent in this household that is screwed up. Unlike the movie version, in the novel Santini's wife Lillian, who means well, is in her own way just as screwed up as her husband. Like Santini, Lillian also loves her children more than anything in the world, but she often acts like a demented Scarlett O'Hara. (Indeed, part of the tension between Santini and his wife comes from the fact that she is a Southern Belle who loves her cultural roots, while Santini is a purposely uncouth Yankee from Chicago who despises everything Southern.) Lillian is especially dysfunctional when it comes to teaching gender roles to her daughters. Just as Santini is one extreme with his sons Ben and Matt, wanting them to grow up to be stoic, hard marines who can unmercifully kill America's enemies, Lillian Meecham puts her oldest daughter Mary Anne through hell basically because Mary Anne is a Plain Jane nonconformist who won't conform to her mother's dictum that a woman is like a flower, pretty but silent and modest, while Mary Anne's pretty younger sister Karen does accept her mother's vision of womanhood. Lillian's ideal vision of how a woman should act is ironic because under her soft Southern Belle persona, Santini's wife is woman of steel whose temper is often as fiery and violent as her husband's. A lot happens action wise in this novel, some of it horrifying, some of it hilarious, but The Great Santini doesn't have an overly obvious narrative drive per se. Instead, the questions that drive the plot of this amazing novel are more subtle: Will Santini be successful in his first command at the Marine base in Ravenel? Will Ben and Mary Anne be successful in their bid to fit in at their new high school? (Like Conroy's "The Lords of Discipline", the action of TGS ta

All of Pat Conroy's books have one foot in his childhood, and none is more autobiographical than The Great Santini. Colonel Bull Meecham is a legendary Marine fighter pilot whose military successes are almost as many as his personal excesses. Lillian Meecham is a Southern gentlewoman with a love of literature. After moving from base to base each year, the Meecham's finally settle down in fictional Ravenel, SC (Beaufort in real life). The Colonel rules his fighter squadron and his family with an iron first. While this technique is successful in motivating his pilots, it has disastrous effects on his wife and children. His cruelty (both mental and physical) is enough to crush even the strongest soul. While he chides Ben for being a sissy, he suppresses Ben's attempts to act like a man. Yet, the Colonel can do endearing things, like when he gives Ben his original flight jacket on his 18th birthday. No wonder Ben has a love-hate relationship with his old man. At a new school, Ben quickly establishes himself as a decent scholar and a talented basketball player. Several teachers and his principal see the potential in young Ben, and give him the love and mentoring he could never get from the Colonel. They teach him the importance of standing up for what he believes and to be his own man. When one of Ben's friends is threatened, Ben defies his dad and goes to his aid. In doing so, he becomes more of a man than his father will ever be. The Great Santini is a fabulous story, and nobody writes with as much passion and beauty as Pat Conroy. Conroy takes us through the emotional gamut from belly laughs to tears and back again. Although some parts of the story are fiction, there is enough truth in that when Conroy's mom filed for divorce from the real Colonel after 33 years of marriage, she handed a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as evidence of the Colonel's violent nature. Conroy is a definitely success story and despite many scars, he was able to overcome his tumultuous upbringing to become the very successful writer he is. But perhaps without that childhood, we would not know the Conroy we know today. Even he admits that "one of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family."

This novel by Pat Conroy is an amazing contemporary novel that leads you through the life of a military family in the late 1950's. This book hits home having several family members, two being pilots and one a marine, that have served in the military, and it was a difficult book to put down. In many ways, the "Great Santini" reminded me of my father; a man that at times is both loved and hated by his family. Colonel Bull Meecham is a marine fighter pilot that demands respect as the "Great Santini" by both his family and his flight squadron. His oldest son Ben, a senior in high school, struggles with the relationship that he has with his father, who he hates very much but loves and respects. If not for Lillian Meecham, wife of the "Great Santini" and peacekeeper of the household, the harsh and sometimes abusive father would release his wrath without a second thought. From the witty remarks of Mary Anne to the competitiveness between Ben and his father, The Great Santini creates a family persona that many can relate. The Great Santini takes you through the difficulties of a year in the life of a southern marine family after the Korean War. I highly recommend entering the past and becoming a member of the Meecham family by reading The Great Santini. This non-stop novel reaches heights of laughter and tears and is well worth reading.

This was Pat Conroy's first novel and I believe this is his only book written in the third person. His writing is beautiful, and in my opinion, has grown even more so in the last 25 + years since he wrote this. I respect him because he has not flooded the market with his books like so many other best-selling authors.This is the story of the Meecham family: Bull, the father, a Marine jet-fighter pilot who refers to himself as "the great Santini"-- as in "The great Santini has spoken"--he is the *law* in the family; Lillian, the mother, a Southern belle who tries to soften her husband's pronouncements and shield her four children from his sometimes-violent wrath; Ben, their son, who is a senior in high school and has a love/hate relationship with Bull; Mary Anne, one year younger than Ben, smart-mouthed and unattractive; and the youngest children, Matt and Karen.I thought the characters were well-drawn and fully fleshed-out. By the end of this book, I felt that I really *knew* them well. The exploration of the father/son, father/children relationship was masterfully done. The locale was not as important to this novel as it was in his other books, especially "Beach Music" and "The Prince of Tides". In this respect, the book could have taken place any where...whereas in the aforementioned books, the locales were almost characters in themselves.All in all, an outstanding book, one that made me sad and happy, made me laugh and cry.