Pat Conroy remembered as friend to Beaufort bookstores, authors

The phone rang behind the counter in Beaufort’s McIntosh Book Shoppe on Saturday morning, not for the first time.

“What are we doing on the Santinis?” Miles Murdaugh asked store owner Wilson McIntosh. Beaufort Bookstore, the shop across town McIntosh also owns, needed to know.

“Tell her don’t sell them all,” McIntosh replied quietly.

McIntosh had cried Saturday morning when he read the news of friend and author Pat Conroy’s death Friday of pancreatic cancer.

Conroy was a friend of independent booksellers and fellow authors, McIntosh said. In addition to book signings in his stores following new releases, Conroy would sign an additional 500 to 1,000 copies to sell in the store.

Conroy connected with each customer at a signing. McIntosh liked to sit and listen as people — many school teachers — told Conroy how his words affected them.

Stacks of Conroy paperbacks cover a folding table in McIntosh Book Shoppe, the Bay Street store McIntosh has operated since 1994. Signed copies of “The Death of Santini” and “Prince of Tides,” spilled from cardboard boxes behind the counter.

“I hate to sell any of them now, because I can’t replace them,” McIntosh said.

People began calling Saturday morning with requests. A woman asked for a signed first edition of “The Great Santini,” learned she couldn’t afford the book and settled for a regular copy.

Murdaugh brushed the weathered cover of the first edition, noting its missing dust jacket.

A customer waiting outside before the store opened told Murdaugh of a chance encounter with Conroy outside the store six years earlier. The brief meeting led the person to choose a career in teaching.

McIntosh, who will turn 68 at the end of March, was a freshman at The Citadel when Conroy was a senior.

The freshman was often in trouble, McIntosh said, and instead of confinements was allowed to watch Conroy and Citadel’s basketball team.

The bookseller’s treasured possession is a first edition of “The Boo,” Conroy’s first book. Conroy signed the book to McIntosh, “who wears the ring.”

A Citadel graduate, class of 1967, with a nod to McIntosh’s class of 1970.

On Saturday, McIntosh wore a red Citadel cap and a camouflage jacket over his plaid shirt. He pulled at each end of a small piece of paper from the pocket of his khaki pants while he talked.

He swiped through his email on a black iPhone until finding a photo of his last meeting with Conroy, at a Hilton Head Island book signing this past December.

McIntosh remembered Conroy as easy to be around, always ready with a dig from his wicked sense of humor. Conroy sometimes invited McIntosh to his weekly gatherings at Griffin Market on Carteret Street.

The author was generous with his time, McIntosh said. Whenever Conroy learned of a restaurant customer too shy or polite to introduce themselves, Conroy invited them over to chat.

“People come to this store from all over the world,” McIntosh said. “And they all know Pat Conroy.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2016 at 12:52 PM.