Angela's Ashes [Paperback]

"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." Welcome, then, to the pinnacle of the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America. It turns out that prospects weren't so great back in the old country either--not with Malachy for a father. A chronically unemployed and nearly unemployable alcoholic, he appears to be the model on which many of our more insulting clichés about drunken Irish manhood are based. Mix in abject poverty, and frequent death and illness, and you have all the makings of a truly difficult early life. Fortunately, in McCourt's able hands it also has all the makings of a compelling memoir. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

‘’Angela's Ashes’ out Roddy Doyles Roddy Doyle. I was amazed by it.’ Margaret Forster, author of ‘Hidden Lives’

‘Once opened, this brilliant and seductive book will not let you rest until Frank emerges, more or less reared, at the close of boyhood.’ Thomas Keneally, author of ‘Schindler's List.’

‘Frank McCourt's lyrical Irish voice will draw comparison to Joyce. It's that seductive, that hilarious. In the annals of memoir, his name will be writ large.’ Mary Karr, author of ‘The Liar's Club’.

‘I was moved and dazzled by the sombre and lively beauty of this book; it is a story of survival and growth beyond all odds; a chronicle of surprising triumphs, written in language that is always itself triumphant.’ Mary Gordon, author of ‘The Shadow Man.’

'McCourt’s reading is captivating from the first moment.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Stunning reissue of the phenomenal worldwide bestseller: Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the 30s and in Ireland in the 40s.

It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums – too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy's drinking bouts constantly brings the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds.

Written with the vitality and resonance of a work of fiction, and with a remarkable absence of sentimentality, ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's distinctive humour and compassion. Out of terrible circumstances, he has created a glorious book in the tradition of Ireland's literary masters, which bears all the marks of a great classic.

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.

People everywhere brag or whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long years. Above all we were wet…'

So begins Frank McCourt's stunning memoir of his childhood in Ireland and America, a recollection in Ireland and America, a recollection of unvarnished truth and no self pity, of grinding poverty and indomitable spirit that will live in the memory long after the tape has ended.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Angela's Ashes' won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics' Circle Award. For thirty years he taught in NYC schools, before, in his 60s, settling down to write his story.