…Then another porpoise broke the water and rolled toward us. A third and fourth porpoise neared. The visitation was something so rare and perfect that we knew by instinct not to speak—and then as quickly as they had come, the porpoises moved away from us…Each of us would remember that all during our lives. It was the purest moment of freedom and headlong exhilaration that I had ever felt. A wordless covenant was set, and I would go back in my imagination, and return to where happiness seemed so easy to touch.

In 2009 Conroy publiPat Conroyd South of Broad which again uses the familiar backdrop of Charleston following the suicide of newspaperman Leo King's brother and alternates narratives of a diverse group of friends between 1969 and 1989. " They divorced on 26 October 1995. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into a feature film Conrack starring Jon Voight in 1974.

Two of his novels The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini were made into Oscar-nominated films. Pat Conroy (born October 26 1945) is a New York Times bestselling author who has written several acclaimed novels and memoirs.