“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
So touching and filled with grace.
Great true Life Story of povert in Ireland
A great story for that time era. Great characters . A good page turner.
Real life story very well told of Franks childhood and upbringing.
A true story teller. I learned so much of the culture of the time and love and different ways of looking at a situation.
MODERN CLASSIC
Started this book and was very depressing. Could not finish.
I read this book several years ago and enjoyed it. One can learn so much from the lives of other people and how life was in the past.
DEPRESSING
Absolutely a must read and then follow with “Tis”
Great book
the essential Irish family story..told with wit and depth and soulful despair
An amazing true story that stays with you for a long time.
Very well written and eye opening. Would highly recommend.
Heartbreaking. My grandmother always talked about the tough times growing up and books like this take us to a time when tragedy was around every corner and death was an ever present companion. The capacity to find love beauty and happiness in such difficult and bleak circumstances is a testament to the human spirit
Way too maudlin.
One of my favorite all time books. Reading the book was great, listening to the author read book was even better. If you have had a rough childhood, I guarantee you will laugh and gain a better perspective of your past. Highly recommended!
Excellent
A look at the world of the very poor in Ireland, stripped of all sentimentality, yet enormously human in its detail.
A must read.