“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 … 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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One of the best books I have read. You will laugh and cry at the same time. Wonderful!
Didn’t enjoy it as much as the hype.
Frank McCourt writes on the Irish-American experience as clearly as anyone. Other immigrant groups also have great stories to tell, but Angela’s Ashes is representative of the Irish many of us have in our bloodline. You can see McCourt’s faint smile and hear his brogue as you read.
Sad but True Event that captivate the heart. You will love this book from the start to finish. It will haunt you when you aren’t even reading it. Not many books have left me feeling like I lived through the lives of the characters as this book did. I could say more but please read it for yourself!!!
I am Irish-American, read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in my late teens and never forgot it! Angela’s Ashes was the perfect continuation of the story. Great insight into my Irish roots, the plague of alcoholism and how families survive it.
addiction set in the stark reality of Irish poverty The depths that humanity can sink to is a startling reality.
It’s been years since I read it and was one of the best books I’ve read. Haunting, gripping and so awful to think how some people suffer due to alcoholism. My own father was an alcoholic and I can relate to some of the misery.
an eye opener to others life perils, but very sad.
Frank McCourt is a superb writer. What a beautifully-crafted book!
Loved this book. It was so good that I listened to the recording after I read the book. I loved the author ‘so voice
Such a sad tale of so much loss and pain.
Absolutes one of the best books I have ever read and I have read many books
I didn’t like this book. The mother irritated me no end, she had money for smokes but not for food to feed her children.
One of the best books I ever read. It stays with you for years…
I really like this book, although his veracity was questioned by his mother who stood up at a public meeting and screamed “liar” at him. Trump’s mother never did that for us.
One of my Top Ten.
I loved this book. I read it some time ago, but I remember alternating between tears and laughter through the whole book.
I loved this book. Angela (the author Frank McCourt’s mother) lived such a hard life but she managed to survive. And likewise her family. A lovely and compassionate accounting by McCourt of his childhood and the hardships he and his family faced.
Memorable.
A classic. So well written, and such a moving story. A must read.