Angela's Ashes [Audio Download]

I am afraid there is no point becoming bleary eyed about this story: it is a raw story of some very poor people living what can only be described as a wretched existence. Life is raw, the language is raw and the overall situation is raw.

We are taken from the USA to Ireland on the back of the Great Depression to what can only be described as an Even Greater Depression. Frank is the narrator and therefore the main character; and he tells us all about his family and his circumstances all the way through to his manhood. We learn about his father: an Ulsterman who regularly drinks away the tiny amount of money the family has; and who wants his boys to fight for Ireland's cause. We learn about Frank's mother, Angela, who floats from being absolutely desperate to being a tower of strength. There are also the siblings: the ones who survived and the ones who didn't.

We are told about housing conditions that must be impossible for us to imagine let alone survive living in. There is a daily diet that consisted of bread and tea and precious little else. There are also relatives who are presented as hard, uncaring and lacking sympathy: we have to bear in mind that these people were suffering too; and appreciating that should help us to tolerate them more.

I was a bit surprised that although there is a lot of humour in the book, there wasn't much childish glee and happiness coming through. Despite the wretched existence that the family went through, children do tend to remember sunshine and laughter from their childhoods and this element is missing. If it genuinely was missing, then I think that Frank has done very well to get to the stage where he has been able to go to University, graduate, work as a high school teacher and write this book.

As I was around two thirds of the way through this book I started to think that there shouldn't be any sequels to it: this is a stand alone story. However, there is a sequel whose title is the final word of this book "'Tis", reflecting Frank's very interesting reintroduction to the land of the free.

Despite the epithets on the book's cover, this is not a romantic story, this is not a story that we should pretend to empathise with; and it is not a story that we should ignore. Frank McCourt has written a book that should awaken a reality in us that poverty, misery and depression don't only belong to distant history and in the slums of Calcutta and Rio de Janeiro and Harlem: they can be a lot nearer than we think.