Frank Conroy; Author and Iowa Writers' Workshop Director

"I could not resist the clarity of the world in books," Frank Conroy wrote, "the incredibly satisfying way in which life became weighty and accessible. Books were reality." (AP)

Frank Conroy, who exerted a strong influence over a generation of American writers despite his own slender literary output, died April 6 of colon cancer at his home in Iowa City. He was 69.

For the past 18 years, he was director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the country's oldest and most esteemed creative writing program, where he helped discover and polish literary talent. He had planned to leave his post later this year.

But his lasting fame, and his credibility as a writer and teacher, stemmed from his 1967 memoir, "Stop-Time," which explored his bleak but artistically fevered childhood and helped launch the modern trend of the confessional memoir. He was 31 when "Stop-Time," his first book, was published to rapturous reviews, then spent years struggling to recapture his literary voice. He went through a divorce, lived at the threshold of poverty, spent years in Europe and worked as a jazz pianist before finding a measure of security in teaching.

Daringly original for its time, Mr. Conroy's memoir described his life growing up in New York as the son of an absent and alcoholic father who left him little but a "wall of books" that he devoured as a boy. He discovered the classics of English, French and American literature and, throughout his life, would read one or two books a day.

"I could not resist the clarity of the world in books," he wrote, "the incredibly satisfying way in which life became weighty and accessible. Books were reality."

He also developed a deep interest in music, mentored by a jazz pianist who later threw himself out a window.

"Stop-Time" also describes Mr. Conroy's difficult relationship with his Danish mother, who hooked up with a shady drifter of a boyfriend who moved the family to Florida. Mr. Conroy returned to New York, an orphan in all but name, to find his way in the world.

The Washington Post's Jonathan Yardley, in a 2002 essay, described "Stop-Time" as "an utterly unsentimental, clear-minded exploration of the author's painful but instructive boyhood and adolescence."

In the New York Times, James Atlas said Mr. Conroy's "masterly evocation of his childhood reflects a genius for close observation, a genius produced out of circumstances that could hardly be more barren of tradition or history."

His early success, however, proved to be something of a curse. It took Mr. Conroy 18 years to produce a second book, a collection of short stories called "Midair" (1985), and he did not publish his first and only novel, "Body & Soul," until he was 57.

In all, he wrote five books, including a 2002 collection of essays, "Dogs Bark, But the Caravan Rolls On," and a book about Nantucket, "Time and Tide" (2004). His later works received polite reviews but inevitably were seen by critics to fall short of the dark, revelatory brilliance of "Stop-Time."

Mr. Conroy was born in New York City on Jan. 15, 1936. After his turbulent childhood, he graduated from Haverford College in Pennsylvania determined to be a writer. He spent several years in Europe, then worked on "Stop-Time" for five years.

In his long gap between books, he worked as a jazz pianist. David Halberstam, a longtime friend, described Mr. Conroy as "innately hip, the first true counterculture person I had ever met."

In an essay in "Dogs Bark," Mr. Conroy wrote about one evening when he was playing "Autumn Leaves" at a bar in New York and was approached by Charles Mingus, the notoriously hot-tempered jazz bassist. Mingus picked up a bass and played with Mr. Conroy for an hour.