Conroy's Literary Slam-Dunk

摘要

Showing off the citadel recently, Pat Conroy kept circling his alma mater, looking up at the looming water tower from different angles. "Somebody put my name up there and then painted one of those circles with a slash over it," he said. "I just wanted to see if it was still up there." Conroy ran afoul of the Charleston, S.C., military college in the late '90s when he supported the admission of female cadets. The rift has since been smoothed over so successfully that ex-cadet Conroy was asked to give the 2001 commencement address, and he revels in the fact that many cadets tell him that reading "The Lords of Discipline," his 1980 novel about the Cita-del, persuaded them to apply. So why does he care if his name is still sullied on the water tower? "Hey, you got your name on a water tower," he says with a big grin, "you know you're still in the game."