Conroy Pat. The Great Santini

Fierce and fearsome, Col. Bull Meecham is an ace Marine fighter pilot,a legend to his men and known to one and all as “The Great Santini.” For Meecham’s family — especially his sensitive older son Ben, who is on the verge of manhood — the dark side of the legend is all too real.
Pat Conroy’s 1976 novel The Great Santini tells their story, an unforgettable portrait of a family that endures in the shadow of a wellintentioned but cruelly demanding and abusive father. The great surprise here is the character of Bull Meecham himself, a harsh and impossible figure the reader comes to know from Ben’s perspective, with hard-won love and understanding.
Family ghosts haunt each of the novels of Pat Conroy (b. 1945), and The Great Santini describes a relationship not unlike the novelist’s own with his tough and domineering father. The autobiographical parallels are mere points of departure, though, as Conroy spins
powerful and gripping tales in which he blends his imagination with his own experience and an almost lyrical sense of time and place. The Great Santini is perhaps best known though the 1979 film adaptation, for which Robert Duvall won an Oscar nomination for his brilliant portrayal of Bull Meecham. But Conroy’s novel is an even richer experience, a deeply affecting story full of brawling vigor and humor, pain and sorrow, acceptance and growth.