Years before it became a center of controversy for its traditional exclusion of women, South Carolina's venerable military academy The Citadel inspired novelist Pat Conroy (who is one of its graduates) to craft a powerful and vivid story he called "The Lords of Discipline." The novel takes place at the fictional Carolina Military Institute, and the author specifically notes that he based his story in details drawn from the experiences of cadets at many other such schools. The burden of tradition and mystique in an old Southern military school are unmistakable, but it is a world Conroy has come to understand, and serves as a fascinating setting for his story.
Will McLean does not belong to the social circle of young men who usually attend the Carolina Military Institute. He is an outsider, a young man wounded by his relationship with his father, and something of a rebel. Will is also a survivor, and he carefully makes his way at the Institute in the early 1960s, bonding with three other cadets amid the brutal hazing and almost threatening camaraderie that are part of life at the school. Particularly disturbing are the activities of a secret group of privileged cadets known only as "The Ten." When he is ordered to look out for the Institute's first black cadet, Will can no longer ignore the corruption and violence around him, a stand that will bring him face-to-face with the force of the Institute's fierce pride and brutalizing tradition.
Conroy's story is rich and explosive, and Will McLean is a charming, deeply compelling hero -- an English major in military academy full of warrior wannabes, striving to be a man in a world of overgrown boys. The alluring atmosphere of the privileged enclave of Charleston is very much a part of this story, and it is well captured, with the witty detachment of an outsider. The riveting narrative of "The Lords of Discipline" is couched in the sensuous detail and affecting humanity that define Conroy's writing at its best. Critic Jonathan Yardley, writing in the Washington Star, has called the novel "a work of enormous power, passion, humor and wisdom."