Angela's Ashes: A Memoir

Overview

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy-- exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling-- does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Editorial Reviews

This volume deserves nomination for the best recorded book of the year. Author McCourt reads and sings the story of his childhood in Limerick. The book is on best sellers lists in the United States and Ireland, has won the Pulitzer Prize, and has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award. McCourt faithfully renders an almost nightmarish youth on the dole in Depression-era Ireland, infusing the tale with exceptional humor and grace. His ability to rise above squalor, cruelty, and neglect and achieve the American dream is an inspiration for all not just those with an alcoholic parent and more siblings than the family can handle. For McCourt, today a teacher and actor in New York, his debut as a narrator is truly a phenomenon. This amazing story of triumph over adversity belongs in every collection. James Dudley, Copiague, N.Y. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt was born in 1930's Brooklyn to Irish immigrant parents, Malachy and Angela. At the age of four, McCourt and his family moved back to Ireland and settled in Limerick. Shortly thereafter, McCourt's father abandoned the family to a life of poverty and struggle that shaped young Frank's life and future profession as a writer of his own memoirs, the critically acclaimed Angela's Ashes. McCourt attended school until the age of 14, at which point he was forced to drop out to help support the family. In 1949, he scraped together enough money to afford passage back to America. Once there, he worked odd jobs until his decision to go back to school and persuaded New York University to allow him acceptance among the ranks of the collegiate. McCourt began to teach in 1970 at Seward Park High School in Manhatten's Lower East Side. His students led lives similar to his own meager beginnings and in an effort to connect with them, he told them stories of his own impoverished childhood. Hoping to stimulate his income, McCourt occasionally wrote articles for newspapers and magazines, all the while continuing to write down his memoirs. In 1972, McCourt began teaching at the prestigious Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan where his students constantly delighted him and urged him to pursue his own writings, even as he urged them in their prospective talents. In 1994 McCourt retired from teaching to finally take the time to write the story of his life. After so many years of taking notes and writing down anecdotes, McCourt had compiled an impressive history. This history became the critically acclaimed Angela's Ashes, which hit bookstores in 1996 and went on to become a Pulitzer prize winning story in 1997. McCourt also wrote 'Tis, a book almost as well known as Angela' Ashes. He always told his students to write what they know and write it from the heart. In taking his own advice, he earned the highest honors possible for an author to achieve. 030

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Additional Info

Imprint

Scribner

Filesize

760.91 KB

Number of Pages

364

eBook ISBN

9780684864839

Awards

• American Library Association Notable Books
• Audie Award
• Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award
• National Book Critics Circle Awards
• Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
• Pulitzer Prize
• Rea Non-Fiction Prize (Boston, Massachusetts)