About this title: After years of teaching creative writing, Frank McCourt published his first book, thus obliging his many friends who had been urging him to write about his childhood--a subject they knew from the many uproarious and affecting stories he told about it. ANGELA'S ASHES traces the tortuous path of his life from his days in abysmal poverty in Limerick, Ireland, to his arrival in New York as a teenager, eager to start a new life.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: 2nd Touchstone ed. 1999
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780684872179ISBN:068487217X
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Very good condition and not far from fine, no spinewear creases and clean, tight pages, cover attractive looking. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 368 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Very Good. 068487217X Great condition Soft Cover book, clean pages, mild creases to spine, light edge/corner rubs, this book is GREAT! Shop & Save With US. read more
Description: Very Good. 068487217X Great condition Soft Cover book, clean pages, mild creases to spine, light edge/corner rubs, this book is GREAT! Shop & Save With US. read more
"I loved this book. I started out buying it as a gift for my mother. That might have been the last time I visited her at Christmas time (I'm not crazy about driving trips in the winter). And while there, I started reading it. I knew it I had to buy it for myself when I returned home. I did. And I read the book in about a week, if that long.
I'm part Irish. But you don't have to be Irish to like this book. Matter of fact, a lot of the Irish didn't like it because it exposed just how poverty stricken they were. And many people feel it is exaggerated.
But I think anyone who cares anything about people would like this book. It does have "in-your-face" poverty. Children who die because doctors aren't available or they are malnourished. People who look around and believe that if they stay where they are, they will be destined for the same poverty stricken life that their parents have.
To me this was a very moving book. You could be crying your eyes out on one page at the sorrow of it all and on the very next page you are laughing hysterically at the folly of it all. But, maybe that's just the Irish in me."
"Entertaining and amazing story. I'm a bit biased, perhaps, being part Irish. And having been to Ireland on vacation last year. I'm now dying to read 'Tis."
"Angela's Ashes is the first of three memoirs written by Irish author Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes was published in 1996, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The story was made into a film directed by Alan Parker in 1999. Frank McCourt begins his story with the tale of how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. When Malachy gets his mother Angela pregnant with Frank, she marries him and the two start their life together in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Angela gives birth to three more sons while in Brooklyn; the second son is Malachy, followed by twins Oliver and Eugene. Malachy Sr., Frank's father, proves to be a hopeless alcoholic who cannot hold onto a job for more than a few weeks at a time. Some motivation to improve his behavior comes with the birth of a daughter, Margaret. When Margaret passes away in their Brooklyn apartment, only a few weeks old, the McCourt family moves back to Ireland, where twins Oliver and Eugene both die within a year. Two more sons Michael and Alphie are born in Limerick, into a gritty world of discomfort and suffering. Frank McCourt's story is an absolutely miserable one. He opens the novel explaining the extent of the misery that was his childhood. "When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived 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." The McCourt family eventually settles into a less-than-comfortable house on a sorrowful lane in Limerick. The lane shares just one lavatory among all the houses, which happens to be located in the McCourt's backyard. In addition to the cold and the rain, the McCourt family has to endure the stench of their neighbors dumping their sewage on windy days. Angela McCourt is left with no other option than to beg for the dole and handouts from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Malachy manages to drink away all of his wages in the pubs, and still cannot hold onto a steady job. During World War II, Malachy travels to England to work at a defense plant, yet he still manages to waste all of his money, and only sends wages home once. The McCourt children have one set of clothes and a pair of patched shoes each, struggling to live off of very little in their damp, cold climate. Although Frank's story is desperate and sometimes unbelievable, it is full of good humor and adventure. The reader is certain to find themselves laughing out loud many times throughout the course of the book, and there are countless quotable passages between the covers. As a memoir, this book is particularly interesting because it is McCourt's real account and interpretation of his childhood. He paints a beautiful picture with his words, telling what was going through his mind as he grew up in brutal conditions in New York and Limerick. McCourt recounts the days when having an entire egg to himself for breakfast was an exciting and noteworthy luxury, and his clothes were held together by his mother's obvious stitch work, while some children in his class had no shoes at all. McCourt's voice and rhythm are very distinctive, and I would definitely rank him among my favorite storytellers. Angela's Ashes is a powerful masterpiece which tells a true story about pain, hunger, desperation, love, heartbreak, and, above all, strength. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read which is full of humor, but also very meaningful."
"What a beautiful book. You will never look at your home's second story the same way again after reading of the flooding incident and how the family retreated to the upper story. I add this to the long line of reasons for wishing my Grandmother were still around so that I could ask about stories of our family's past in Cork. Read. This. Book."
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