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Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
Angela's Ashes
by: (author)
3.63 300
“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... show more
“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. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness. Angela’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.
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Format: paperback
ISBN: 9780684842677 (068484267X)
ASIN: 068484267X
Publisher: Scribner
Pages no: 368
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
Read All The Things! Reviews
Read All The Things! Reviews rated it
3.5 Angela's Ashes
I read ‘Tis when I was a teenager, and it’s one of those books that have always stuck with me. I’ve wanted to read Angela’s Ashes for years. I’m glad that I finally got a chance to read it. Frank McCourt was born in depression-era New York, but poverty and his father’s drinking drove his immigrant...
Inked Brownies
Inked Brownies rated it
4.0 Angela's Ashes
Innocence was never this hilariousI really enjoyed reading this book. It was like a part of some review on the backflap promised it to be: you can open it up on any page and find yourself drawn into the story. The writing style was a little hard to get into for me at first. I think it took about 50 ...
Carpe Librum
Carpe Librum rated it
2.5 Review: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
I am searching for more pages, one final chapter. This cannot be how it ends. No, I'm not longing for more because this story was so captivating or the prose beautifully poetic. I seriously can't believe that this whole story leads up to such a lame let-down of an ending. Did I truly just read 362 p...
The Open Book
The Open Book rated it
3.0 Mini Review of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt
I can't say I was overly fond of Frank McCourt's celebrated memoir. I found it vaguely disingenuous from the beginning (really, Frank? We're supposed to believe you have such a clear and concise recollection of things that happened before you were five?), which made it difficult for me to really set...
Lisa (Harmony)
Lisa (Harmony) rated it
2.0 Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
I wanted to love this book--so many whose opinions I respect adored it beyond words. I actually saw the film and remember liking it a lot. At first I thought I would love it. The book is McCourt's memoir of his miserable childhood in Ireland. With an emphasis on misery. The first pages really pulled...
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