“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.
more
One of my top ten! A must.
Terrific coming of age story. Good writing, interesting insights, etc. Well worth reading.
I read this book years ago and it still haunts me.
Best when read with an Irish accent.
A really wonderful, unforgettable book about the author growing up poor in Ireland……
This was a tough book to give a rating to due to its very depressing content. I was pulled into it to discover how things would turn out but was also discouraged at times on the turn of events and the social conditions at that time.
An original story that has kept with me years later.
Delightfully informative
Excellent book about author & his siblings growing up in Ireland & New York in very poor environment
This book was well written, though I wanted to smack half the characters, especially the mother!
I am Irish and this is so realistic read it
Another favorite from years ago.
Very,very sad.
Great book
I read this book sitting inside a dimly lighted area waiting several hours for my daughters. I became so involved and upset as I read the story that I needed to continue it outside in the sunlight under a spring tree to calm my nerves.
A beautifully written immigrant story. I loved it.
Most depressing book I’ve ever read!
Had a hard time getting into it.
One of the most haunting, memorable books I have ever read.
Depressing Irish.