“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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Read so long ago all I can remember is that I was impressed and enjoyed it.
Was expecting a lot more. Very little plot, much repetition. Not much to redeem it.
This is one of the most beautifully written well told autobiographies I have ever read!
A pretty good insight I to the socalled Irish mind. A good read.
Beautifully written.
Eye-opener on what really went on. little cute, little sad…
This was a book I will never forget. I learned about a piece of Irish history.
Read a long time ago…..loved it.
An amazing true story. Tragic yet filled with hope. So we’ll written and filled with raw emotion. How did this family ever survive…
Frank McCort did a wonderful job telling us about his life growing up in Ireland.
Read this book!
My favorite book of all time.
this book is a classic—-
get your kleenex ready
Autobiographical. Read it years ago and only remember that I loved it.
wonderful true story, loved the characters. very informative about the hard times the Irish had
Sad, but happy book – great character development and insight into the Irish character.
It is hard to imagine such a harsh childhood, but Frank McCourt recounts his in a way fhat makes you smile and cry at the same time. I read this book many years ago but I can still feel the haunting details in my bones whenever I think of it. This book should be included in high school reading programs so that kids can understand the strength and …
Just an excellent book.
Too depressing.