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Quick question guys...
Is the spoken intro to The Prince of Tides ("the sun, red and enormous...") an actual excerpt from the novel or is it an original from Jimmy himself? I've Googled the crap out of it and can't find the excerpt from the book. One source even says it's a quote from another Conroy novel; The Water Is Wide. Can anyone confirm? Thanks in advance.

bananaman wrote: ↑August 19, 2018 8:08 pm Quick question guys...
Is the spoken intro to The Prince of Tides ("the sun, red and enormous...") an actual excerpt from the novel or is it an original from Jimmy himself? I've Googled the crap out of it and can't find the excerpt from the book. One source even says it's a quote from another Conroy novel; The Water Is Wide. Can anyone confirm? Thanks in advance.

It is a passage from page 678 of the novel Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

Although not the subject of your question I'll contribute my favorite passage from The Prince of Tides. I confess that it's only because of my lowcountry roots. Pat's nonfiction works were filled with truths from tormented life. This is one of the more pleasant reflections.


“To describe our growing up in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, I would have to take you to the marsh on a spring day, flush the great blue heron from its silent occupation. Scatter marsh hens as we sink to our knees in mud, open you an oyster with a pocketknife and feed it to you from the shell and say, ‘There. That taste. That’s the taste of my childhood.’ I would say, ‘Breathe deeply,’ and you would breathe and remember that smell for the rest of your life, the bold, fecund aroma of the tidal marsh, exquisite and sensual, the smell of the South in heat, a smell like new milk, semen and spilled wine, all perfumed with seawater. My soul grazes like a lamb on the beauty of indrawn tides. I was shaped by life on the river, part child, part sacristan of tides. My heart belongs in the marshlands. My heart is a lowcountry heart."