The Water is Wide

A young schoolteacher struggles to bring literacy and selfrespect to a black backwoods South Carolina school in this affecting work. An early, semiautobiographical novel by the author of THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE and THE PRINCE OF TIDES Filmed, as CONRACK in 1974 by Martin Ritt with Jon Voight and Paul Winfield.

Pat Conroy's novels are populated with domineering fathers, Southern belles of steel, and inexorable tragedy; all are elements the author is familiar with from his own life, and he has drawn on them to create unforgettable books. He is sometimes accused of florid prose, but he never fails to draw attention -- and readers -- with his passionate stories.