Angela's Ashes

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  This is an astonishing memoir of growing up in Catholic Ireland. I read this at about age 12 and loved it all through high school and decided it had been a good couple of years since I had read it so read it again.

  The novel starts off with a four year old Frankie in the USA, and he tells the story of his very young years. His mother comes to the USA for a new life, before meeting Frank's father Malachy and Frank is born only a few months after his parents' marriage rendering him a bastard. ... (show more)

  This is an astonishing memoir of growing up in Catholic Ireland. I read this at about age 12 and loved it all through high school and decided it had been a good couple of years since I had read it so read it again.

  The novel starts off with a four year old Frankie in the USA, and he tells the story of his very young years. His mother comes to the USA for a new life, before meeting Frank's father Malachy and Frank is born only a few months after his parents' marriage rendering him a bastard. The family moves to Ireland when Frank's little sister dies as just a baby. They travel through Dublin, visiting Malachy's family and end up in Limerick. The next part of the story chronicles growing up with an alcoholic father and surviving with not enough money for food and relying on grants from various Christian foundations and 'the dole' as well as living assistance where possible and IOUs from the grocery store down the road. The thing that makes this memoir so heartbreaking is that it is written from the perspective of his young self. Frankie tries to model himself on the masculine figure his father never was and is constantly under the watchful eye of his Catholic God and spends a lot of time in confession. He finds himself rejected from local high schools because of the family's low social status, rejected from being an altar boy despite knowing the Latin phrases back to front. His family are at constant threat from "the typhoid", "the galloping consumption" and other illnesses which are not made less likely when the family moves next to a sole lavatory in a street where sewage is emptied from the other houses in the lane daily.

  The book continues as Frankie struggles as a 13 year-old to make a life for himself, with the over and above goal of leaving Ireland for the USA, he makes his living firstly as a telegram boy and then as a magazine deliverer. An especially amusing part of the book is when one of the magazines they deliver accidentally has a page advertising contraception, Frankie is made to rip out the pages of the magazines where they have been delivered, not having a clue what contraception is and sells these scandalous pages for a profit.

  The Irish lilt is noticed throughout and this is something that draws the reader even more into Frankie's life and his dedication to becoming something different than his upbringing would have him believe. His father's Dublin accent is scorned throughout by the other families in the area. McCourt truly had (he died recently) a great gift for writing and for displaying events as they happened in his mind at the time which is something a lot of memoirs struggle with. This remains on my list of favourite books. I highly recommend it. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Nov 12, 2009 at 12:06AM

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  Angela’s Ashes -- A Memoir
  By Frank McCourt

  Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt was published in 1996 and is a delightful book, in spite of the horrid conditions and circumstances in which Frank McCourt grew up. This memorable book won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize and was on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street Journal.

  Frank is conceived out of wedlock and born in the U.S. to a mother who grew up in the slums of Ireland and to an alcoholic fa... (show more)

  Angela’s Ashes -- A Memoir
  By Frank McCourt

  Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt was published in 1996 and is a delightful book, in spite of the horrid conditions and circumstances in which Frank McCourt grew up. This memorable book won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize and was on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, Boston Globe, Publishers Weekly, and Wall Street Journal.

  Frank is conceived out of wedlock and born in the U.S. to a mother who grew up in the slums of Ireland and to an alcoholic father who seldom has a job. On the sporadic and rare occasions when Malachy McCourt has employment, he drinks away his pay in pubs, while his family goes without basic food, clothing, or sanitary living conditions. Out of desperation, the McCourt’s return to the poverty of Limerick, Ireland, where Frankie grows up. The family’s arrival in Limerick is not a happy family reunion. Frank’s grandmother glares when Malachy cuts the starving boys’ bread slices too thick, and she only allows the family to spend one night. Poverty is so severe that Frankie’s twin brothers and little sister die of illnesses made worse by starvation.

  The animosity that exists between Catholics and Protestants is evident throughout the memoir. When a condom ad is discovered in a Protestant magazine, Frank is ordered by his Catholic employer to “go on God’s mission as fast as he can to every shop and tear page 16 out of every magazine and bring all page 16’s back to burn in the fire.” However, Frank is secretly saving for a voyage to America, and he finds a way to make extra money on the page 16 condom fiasco.

  McCourt’s writing style is charming and unique. Punctuation is mostly missing, and the book is written as McCourt thinks -- complete with run-on sentences and words spelled phonetically, rather than spelled correctly. Frank eventually makes it back to America, and his second book, a sequel entitled ‘Tis, picks up in New York City when Frank is 17-years old.

  McCourt’s writing style is charming and unique. Punctuation is mostly missing, and the book is written as McCourt thinks -- complete with run-on sentences and words spelled phonetically, rather than spelled correctly. Frank eventually makes it back to America, and his second book, a sequel entitled ‘Tis, picks up when Frank is 17-years old. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook User on Oct 01, 2009 at 02:01AM

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