Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Close, but...
If you ever played interscholastic basketball you are going to enjoy this book for Conroy's recapitulations of his hoop experiences. If you have ever enjoyed competition in any endeavor you will probably like this book for the same reason. If you ever - well, you get my drift. Unfortunately, if you are expecting something more, like scintillating insights into the human psyche, you might want to read one of Conroy's other books.
Where I come from, basketball players who star for their high school team, who are good enough to interview with recruiters from ACC schools and who receive their college team's MVP award are better than mediocre, better than not very good. Perhaps, it's my fault for not being able to get past Conroy's annoyingly humble assessments of his athletic skills, but I couldn't get past it and it made it difficult for me to accept a bunch of this book. I mean, if he is so clearly unable to accurately examine and judge such a vital aspect of his own life, how can Conroy expect me to believe he has drawn an accurate portrait of his other subjects, particularly his father and Coach Thompson?
Rating:  - Conroy: "Same Old Greatness"
All Of Conroy's books blossom from the same themes, yet all of them are invidualistic in their own way. Only a real artist can make each charecter (fiction or non) rich with emotions of love, hatrid, sadness, humor and devastation.
All of Conroy's books live in a warm spot in my heart, each individually eliciting a wonderful storm of emotion that can only be found within the pages he writes."My Loosing Season," is another fine example of what makes Conroy such a elite writer. This book will touch the hearts of all that have experienced the feeling of loss in any facet of life, not just on the basketball court.
This books modest prose is very enlightening about the man Pat Conroy is. For those of you who have read Conroy in the past, this book ads much in the way of insight to how and why those books were written. For those who have not read Conroy before, this book is as good a starting point as any. The man is a genius, a writer that comes around once in a lifetime. My only fear is that this will be his last novel. I can only cross my fingers and wait.... Thank you Pat Conroy
Rating: - Well Worth The Long Wait
What a great writer. There's always a certain sense of loss I feel after reading Conroy novels, after being immersed in his world for several hundred pages and knowing that the journey has reached its end. The sights, sounds, scents and impressions stay with you in many ways, for long periods of time. I remember perusing a mystery novel by an author I've long forgotten immediately after savoring every last word of "Beach Music." There was nothing wrong with the mystery novel, but I couldn't remember anything more than the name of the main character several days later. Yet I could recite paragraphs, describe the plot and quote dialogue from "Beach Music" years later. And "My Losing Season," although non-fiction, makes the same remarkable impression.This is Conroy's description of his senior season on The Citadel's basketball team, which took place in fall 1966 and spring 1967. Because it's heavy on basketball content, there are some Conroy fans who might not sink their teeth into "My Losing Season" quite as deeply as they did his previous books. But Conroy has again dazzled this reader with his prose, not to mention bringing me to tears on more than one occasion as he describes his tortured youth at the hands of his child-beating Marine father. So, too, did his marvelous descriptions of the competitiveness and personalities involved in The Citadel locker room absolutely captivate me. You can almost hear the cadets roaring at the games, and you can almost smell the sweaty socks. Conroy was inspired to write this book after a chance meeting with a former teammate at an Ohio store signing during the "Beach Music" tour. In case you haven't read any of his previous novels, the non-fiction account of his plebe year is as harrowing as any of the best-sellers on his resume. But the bulk of this instant classic is about his senior year, where a good collection of players were unable to jell under the iron-fisted Mel Thompson. This coach sounded like Bobby Knight at his worst, but without the coaching genius, and it's no wonder that many of the players from that team still carry emotional scars a generation later. Perhaps the most admirable part of the book is near the end, when Conroy describes his recent meetings with each player (as well as Coach Thompson, who still sounds too self-consumed to have inspired his dog back then, let alone a group of young athletes). Teammate Al Korboth, a Vietnam vet and Purple Heart winner, was finally convinced to tell his devastating prisoner of war story, and Conroy admits his own shame and guilt in discussing his actions about the war a generation ago. It's also interesting to hear him reflect on the Shannon Faulkner saga of several years ago, as well as The Citadel's ultimate lifting of their ban against him. In my estimation, it takes a great deal of courage to write so brutally honestly about one's own pain and suffering, and to do it so beautifully is even more stunning of an accomplishment. It is comforting to know that based on the last chapters, Conroy seems to have found some peace in recent years, and a large part of that, I'm sure, has to do with mending his relationship with his father during the last years of his life. If there's another book left in this great writer, I look forward to it. If not, "My Losing Season" will serve as a fantastic coda to a remarkable literary career. The man is truly a giant.
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