Frank McCourt: Angela’s Ashes
Winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Critics’ Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Award
Angela's Ashes - A Memoir of a Childhood is Frank McCourt’s autobiography … it narrates his life up to his adulthood. Born into a poor family of Irish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1930, Frank is the eldest of altogether seven children (his sister and two of his brothers die when only little children). For want of work and money his parents decide to return to Ireland, where they live in Limerick, “the holiest town in Ireland”.
From the perspective of “Little Frankie” the reader learns about the hardships of the poor in a strongly Catholic society. How the McCourts have to struggle from day to day with often nothing to eat, how Frank’s father, Malachy, almost always drinks the little money he earns, and how in the end Frank is more and more forced to take care of his mother, Angela, and his brothers.
Frank knows he has to develop himself in order to fulfil his dream: one day to return to America! He has to abandon school but keeps on reading: “… and a thick book called Pear’s Encyclopedia, which keeps me up day and night because it tells you everything about everything and that’s all I want to know”. He quits his job as a telegram boy and joins Easons, even though Easons distributes English and Protestant magazines … in Catholic Ireland! In fact, one wonders if one should feel compassion for his hard childhood or be astonished at his lack of sorrowfulness and scruple in pursuit of his dream.
The author leaves the reader at his first night back in America. Only to rejoin him in the sequel 'Tis.“I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn’t this a great country altogether? – ‘Tis”.
Angela's Ashes - A Memoir of a Childhood is Frank McCourt’s autobiography … it narrates his life up to his adulthood. Born into a poor family of Irish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1930, Frank is the eldest of altogether seven children (his sister and two of his brothers die when only little children). For want of work and money his parents decide to return to Ireland, where they live in Limerick, “the holiest town in Ireland”.
From the perspective of “Little Frankie” the reader learns about the hardships of the poor in a strongly Catholic society. How the McCourts have to struggle from day to day with often nothing to eat, how Frank’s father, Malachy, almost always drinks the little money he earns, and how in the end Frank is more and more forced to take care of his mother, Angela, and his brothers.
Frank knows he has to develop himself in order to fulfil his dream: one day to return to America! He has to abandon school but keeps on reading: “… and a thick book called Pear’s Encyclopedia, which keeps me up day and night because it tells you everything about everything and that’s all I want to know”. He quits his job as a telegram boy and joins Easons, even though Easons distributes English and Protestant magazines … in Catholic Ireland! In fact, one wonders if one should feel compassion for his hard childhood or be astonished at his lack of sorrowfulness and scruple in pursuit of his dream.
The author leaves the reader at his first night back in America. Only to rejoin him in the sequel 'Tis.“I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn’t this a great country altogether? – ‘Tis”.
© 1999 Universal Studios
Frank McCourt: Angela’s Ashes – A Memoir of a Childhood. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. 426 pages. First published in 1996.