The Lost Prince

“In The Lost Prince Michael Mewshaw sets down one of the most gripping stories of friendship I’veever read.” —Daniel Menaker, author of My Mistake: A Memoir Pat Conroy was America’s poet laureate of family dysfunction. A larger-than-life characterand the author of such classics as The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini, Conroy wasremembered 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 Conroywent from being a popular regional writer to an international bestseller. Family snapshots beautifullyillustrate that time. Shortly before his forty-ninth birthday, Conroy telephoned Mewshaw to ask aterrible 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 urgedMewshaw to write about “me and you and what happened . . . i know it would cause much painto both of us. but here is what that story has that none of your others have.” The Lost Prince isMewshaw’s fulfillment of a promise.