Angela's Ashes
by:
Frank McCourt (author)
"Worse 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 ...
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"Worse 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 Irish manhood 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 of a compelling memoir.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780007217038 (000721703X)
Publish date: October 3rd 2005
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Pages no: 432
Edition language: English
Category:
Classics,
Non Fiction,
Autobiography,
Memoir,
Biography,
History,
European Literature,
Cultural,
Irish Literature,
Ireland,
Biography Memoir,
Historical
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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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