" Angela's Ashes "

Author: Frank McCourt
Publisher: Not available
Publication Date: 2006-07-01
Features: “Worst than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood,” writes Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes. “Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren’t so great back in the old country either—not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting clichés about drunken Irishmanhood are based. Mix in abject poverty and frequent death and illness, and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt’s able hands, it also has all the makings for a compelling memoir. —This text refers to the hardcover edition. Ya. Despite impoverishing his family because of his alcoholism, McCourt’s father passed on to him a gift for superb storytelling. He told him about the great Irish heroes, the old days in Ireland, the people in their Limerick neighborhood, and the world beyond their shores. McCourt writes in the voice of the child—with no self-pity or review of events? And just retells the tales. Here recounts his desperately poor early years, living on public assistance and losing three siblings, but manages to make the book funny and uplifting. Stories of trying on his parents’ false teeth and his adventures as a post-office delivery boy will have readers laughing out loud. Young people will recognize the truth in these compelling tales; the emotions expressed; the descriptions of teachers, relatives, neighbors; and the casual cruelty adults show toward children. Readers will enjoy the humor and the music in the language. A vivid, wonderfully readable memoir. —Patricia O’Onan, Prince William Public Library, VA