“The friendship between Bernie Schein and Pat Conroy was long, deep, and all-encompassing. Bernie tells of it with fierce love, great particularity, and often the outrageous wit that makes him Bernie and no one else. Viva Bernie Schein for giving us his Pat Conroy." —Anne Rivers Siddons

"No one is more uniquely qualified to write about his friendship with my late husband, Pat Conroy, than his oldest and closest friend, Bernie Schein. Because they shared the same irreverent humor, biting intellect, and big-hearted personalities, their bond was powerful enough to survive the many turmoils and betrayals that came their way. Bernie’s portrayal of his decades-long relationship with Pat is intimate, honest, heartbreaking, and highly readable. This book is an ode to a rare, complex, and loving friendship." —Cassandra King Conroy, author of Tell Me a Story: My Life with Pat Conroy and The Sunday Wife

"A remarkably intimate look into the soul, adventures, and misadventures of the great writer Pat Conroy, written by his longtime best friend, Bernie Schein. The eulogy and post mortem conversation with the son of the Great Santini toward the close are as touching as the book is riotously funny. Pat and Bernie were teachers, writers, and civil rights pioneers. . . . A very moving, fifty-year-long story of friendship and love. "—Joseph L. Galloway, war correspondent and co-author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young and We Are Soldiers Still

“Troubled family relationships were perfectly captured and explored by Pat Conroy in book after book. All wonderful. What was not known was the depth of resolve and dependence Conroy had with his closest friend, Bernie Schein. Fractious? At times, certainly. Loving? Definitely. Intimate? Yes, and for that very reason far from easy. Here, then, is the real story of that friendship.” —Maria Riva, bestselling author of Marlene Dietrich; The Life

“Bernie Schein is the funniest man alive, or so he has dogmatically maintained during the burdensome decades I have known him. . . . [He is] by turns hysterically funny, wildly neurotic, uniquely sensitive, and heartbreakingly honest.”—Pat Conroy