Pat Conroy - Personal Life

Personal Life

Conroy has been married three times.

His first marriage was to Barbara (née Bolling) Jones on 10 October 1969, while he was teaching on Daufuskie Island. Jones, who had been Conroy's next door neighbor in Beaufort, South Carolina, had been widowed when her first husband, Joseph Wester Jones III, a fighter pilot stationed in Vietnam, had been shot down and killed. Jones already had one daughter, Jessica, and was pregnant at the time of her husband's death with their second child, Melissa. Conroy adopted both girls after he married their mother, and then they had a daughter of their own, Megan. They divorced in 1977.

Conroy then married Lenore (née Gurewitz) Fleischer in 1981. He became the stepfather to her two children, Gregory and Emily, and the couple also had one daughter, Susannah. They divorced on 26 October 1995.

Conroy married his third wife in May 1997, writer Cassandra King, who is the author of four popular novels.

He currently lives on Fripp Island, South Carolina, with wife Cassandra. Conroy has commented that his wife is a much happier writer than he is. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he commented: "I'll hear her cackle with laughter at some funny line she's written. I've never cackled with laughter at a single line I've ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. She writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness."

Conroy's friend, political cartoonist Doug Marlette, died in a car accident in July 2007. Conroy and Joe Klein eulogized Marlette at the funeral. There were 10 eulogists in all, and Conroy called Marlette his best friend, and said: "The first person to cry, when he heard about Doug's death, was God."

Conroy was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame on 18 March 2009.