Library's review
Things I didn't know about this book: The cover says it's a memoir, but it's described within the book itself as a novel. It's a fictionalized account of Conroy's real experience teaching on Defauskie Island, a Gullah community of the descendants of former slaves.
Things I wish I knew about this book: How much is fictionalized? The location, presumably the names of all the children and the families, the school administrators? Did he really make an eloquent, impassioned speech at a school board meeting in an attempt to keep his job? Did he really sue the school district to continue teaching on the island, with the case going to trial? Did he really take the children off the island on a number of field trips, including to Washington, D.C.? Did he make any headway at all in teaching these children who he found to be functionally illiterate for the most part? Did any of them make actual academic progress? He never really says.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed reading this account of Conroy's evolution from redneck good ole boy to bleeding-heart liberal, and I've always found Conroy's writing to be beautifully lyrical and descriptive. It's a little rougher here in this early book, and his tendencies toward the floridly dramatic kept less in check, but the hallmarks of his later style are already evident. But I had no idea this wasn't a straightahead nonfiction book until the very end, and that left me feeling snookered a bit. I felt totally invested in Conroy's drama with the children, the parents, the administration, and to find out that some unknown quantity of it was false left a bad taste in my mouth. I think if I'd gone into the book knowing it was fictionalized I would have liked it quite a bit more.
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Yamacraw Island was haunting, nearly deserted, and beautiful. Separated from the mainland of South Carolina by a wide tidal river, it was accessible only by boat. But for the handful of families that lived on Yamacraw, America was a world away. For years these families lived proudly from the sea until waste from industry destroyed the oyster beds essential to their very existence. Already poor, they knew they would have to face an uncertain future unless, somehow, they learned a new life. But they needed someone to teach them, and their rundown schoolhouse had no teacher. "The Water Is Wide" is Pat Conroy's extraordinary memoir based on his experience as one of two teachers in a two-room schoolhouse, working with children the world had pretty much forgotten. It was a year that changed his life, and one that introduced a group of poor Black children to a world they did not know existed.… (more)