“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 funniest, yet touching books I have ever read. A classic.
The author had a way of showing the humorous side of a harsh and sometimes tragic life. I laughed and cried through this book.
The author manages to make tragedy humorous. The conditions in Ireland that the narrator endures are beyond belief, but he shows how the human spirit can triumph.
One of my favourite books of all time. McCourt is a brilliant storyteller.
A fabulous read that you cannot put down!
It was too disturbing for me.
Full of too many curse words!
Sounded like my family
One of my all-time favorite books
Frank McCourt tells it like it is growing up and living in Ireland. This book and author is an awesome read about life in Ireland. During and after reading this you will appreciate the Irish. I totally enjoyed reading this awesome book.
Read this years ago. The author vilifies his father. The tale of his drinking away the new baby’s milk money resulting in the death of the infant is poignant in the extreme.
Frank’s childhood wasn’t at all unusual in Ireland just a few decades ago. It must have taken a nearly super-human effort not to give in and stay at the bottom when life was so hard, but both Frank and his brothers made it out.
It’s a sad story about growing up in poor Ireland. It was a required read in highschool, but it was good.
Loved this book.
WONDERFUL book by a great writer.
It started out entertaining but by the time Frank reached adolescence, the tales of sex became crass.
This book broke my heart. From page one you are transported back to an Ireland that many people have forgotten. An Ireland that was a place of starvation, filth and babies who died more often than not. It is also a testament to the strength of one young man’s desire to not only live, but to come to an entirely different country where he can …
This is my favorite book ever. You will literally laugh and cry on the same page. Beautifully written.
Vivid writing makes this book what it is. Modern Horatio Alger story of the we-shall-overcome category of memoir. Captures warm and loving spirit in times of hardship. Admirable characters.
I Loved this book. It held my attention to the very end!!!