Reviews

Review Excerpts

The Boston Herald – November 2, 2002
“Haunting, bittersweet, and as compelling as his bestselling fiction”

Houston Chronicle – October 18, 2002
“A wonderfully rich memoir that you don’t have to be a sports fan to love.”

Newsweek – October 14, 2002
“Evocative… Conroy never stops trying to tell the truth. He’s hard on his father and his college coach, but hardest on himself, calling himself a lousy athlete and a coward… The result is harsh but beautiful, one of the very best books an ex-jock has ever written… This whole book is a love letter to losing and the lessons it teaches about friendship, courage, honesty and self-appraisal. Don Conroy would despise My Losing Season. That’s how good it is.”
— Malcolm Jones

The Washington Post – October 14, 2002
“My Losing Season is a superb accomplishment, maybe the finest book Pat Conroy has written.”

The Los Angeles Times – October 13, 2002
“A spirited paean to the game of basketball and a bittersweet recollection of the events that ushered Conroy into his life as a novelist… Conroy is able to transport us back to these games – every one of them – because he has been transported, seemingly reliving them as he writes… My Losing Season is as heartfelt and poignant a coming-of-age memoir as they come and a splendid contribution to the literature of sport.”
— Jeff Turrentine

The Times-Picayune – October 13, 2002
“A book that is touching and inspirational and, yes, courageous… astonishing and often heartbreaking… As My Losing Season progresses, we follow the ups and downs of the Citadel basketball team, and we observe Conroy’s gradual transformation from a shy, frightened, abused boy who is a stranger to himself, into an honorable young man who is acknowledged by his peers to be a leader, and who takes his first steps toward a writing career… It is a story worth telling, and better than any novel, because it’s true.”
— William C. Gibson

Publishers Weekly – September 30, 2002 
“Pat Conroy is an emotional innovator. Unafraid of big emotions, his passionate, compulsively readable books revolve around characters who know great love and great despair, who have had their hearts broken and their spirits crushed but who come back to life… Conroy’s toughness and tenacity, his huge capacity for the kind of love that expresses itself in service, shine through. Conroy may not have been cut out to be a soldier or a star on the court. But in his love for his team and his family, in devotion to truth and beauty and service, he could have been a knight.”
— Tracy Cochran