The Bear had once confided to me that Durrell's ego could fit snugly in the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome but in very few other public places. This runaway megalomania marked him as a blood member of the fraternity of generals. If looks alone could make generals, Durrell would have been a cinch. He was built lean and slim and dark, like a Doberman. A man of breeding and refrigerated intelligence, he ordered his life like a table of logarithms.

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.