The Lost Prince (First Printing) ; A Search for Pat Conroy

“In The Lost Prince Michael Mewshaw sets down one of the most gripping stories of friendship I’ve ever read.” —Daniel Menaker, author of My Mistake: A Memoir

Pat Conroy was America’s poet laureate of family dysfunction. A larger–than–life character and the author of such classics as The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, Conroy was remembered by everybody for his energy, his exuberance, and his self–lacerating humor.

Michael Mewshaw’s The Lost Prince is an intimate memoir of his friendship with Pat Conroy, one that involves their families and those days in Rome when they were both young—when Conroy went from being a popular regional writer to an international bestseller. Family snapshots beautifully illustrate that time. Shortly before his forty–ninth birthday, Conroy telephoned Mewshaw to ask a terrible favor. With great reluctance, Mewshaw did as he was asked—and never saw Pat Conroy again.

Although they never managed to reconcile their differences completely, Conroy later urged Mewshaw to write about “me and you and what happened . . . i know it would cause much pain to both of us. but here is what that story has that none of your others have.” The Lost Prince is Mewshaw’s fulfillment of a promise.

Michael Mewshaw’s five–decade career includes award–winning fiction, nonfiction, literary criticism, and investigative journalism. He is the author of the nonfiction works Sympathy for the Devil: Four Decades of Friendship with Gore Vidal and Between Terror and Tourism; the novel Year of the Gun; and the memoir Do I Owe You Something? He has published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and numerous international outlets. He spends much of his time in Key West, Florida.