The oldest son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot, Pat Conroy recalled his father's strict discipline in his novel, The Great Santini. His education at the South Carolina military academy, the Citadel, inspired another novel, The Lords of Discipline. Both books were made into outstanding motion pictures. Conroy's struggles to teach poor black children on an isolated island community while fighting the indifference of an unsympathetic local school board is recalled in a memoir, The Water is Wide, which became the film Conrack. A recent novel, The Prince of Tides became both a best-selling book and a major motion picture. Again and again, Pat Conroy has transformed the rich experiences of his own life into stories that have captured the imagination of the American public.