Angela's ashes was the book that got me into reading. Sad, funny, hopeful - all at the same time. The day I bought the book, I ended up spending the whole night in my college dorm and finished it in one sitting - something I never thought I'd do prior. Reading Angela's Ashes, like all his other books is an experience - like having an intimate chat with a long lost friend. It's human, it's real, it's raw - and it's the standard with which I continue to judge other books by.

Thanks for the stories Frank - you will be terribly missed and always remembered.

I remember reading this book as a freshman in high school after telling my grandmother, who is Irish and an avid reader, that I despised reading. A class assignment asked us to read a book that linked to our heritage, and my grandmother told me this book might just do the trick for me. After looking at its thickness, I almost flung it out the window, but after a few pages this book had me captivated. I loved it!

I am only giving this book one star as I was so disappointed in its content. It starts out slow and I would have put it down had I known the ending at the beginning. The author makes one feel something with real meaning is coming, but it never does. He does do an excellent job of describing the poor and the hard times they had which makes one want to cry and weep over the misery of that period. However, he puts so much sexual content in it that I don't think is necessary. Over half of the book I would say involves sexual overtones, and I am just don't think all that vivid description is necessary. I think the author has never really gotten over that aspect, and that is probably why it comes out so much in the book. Maybe this was his cartharsis, and if so, then I understand and hope it brought healing. I am glad so many enjoyed it, maybe I am the oddball.

This is such a great book! I loved it! It is very sad and hard to believe that it really happened to those poor kids. But I couldn't even put it down. At the end of the book I was so upset that it didn't "end." I guess I should have known there was a sequel.

Great service with very fast delivery. The book was in excellent condition and priced very inexpensively. The email I received detailing the time frame for delivery (from UK to US) was personable and made me feel like I was the "only" customer they had. Nice touch! With delivery originating in the UK I fully expected delivery to take a few weeks, but, it came within days. Great experience all around!

This story is the one of Frank McCourt's, an Irish-American who was raised in Limerick, Ireland. It is his life story from his earliest memories in New York through his life in Ireland until he returns to America at age 19. His life was a remarkable one and I can't imagine living through the hardships that he's endured. He lived a childhood in extreme poverty and nearly died of typhoid fever. Frank suffers the loss of his twin brothers and little sister. Frank's father is an alcoholic that causes his family to live in squalor as he spends any money he earns in the pub until it is gone.

Frank's story in Angela's Ashes is one that contains so many unbelievable hardships, yet at the same time the reader is amazed by his resilience and continued fight to make something of his life and return to America.

Lisa lent me this book and told me that it was one of her favorites. I can see why. I have since learned that Frank McCourt received the Pulitzer Prize (1997) and National Book Critics Circle Award (1996) for Angela's Ashes. He is also the author of `Tis, which continues the story of his life, picking up from the end of the Angela's Ashes and focusing on life in America, and Teacher Man about his challenges as a teacher with his students.

Reading this book was so overwhelming to me! Its tale was remarkable and I felt such a sense of gratefulness for the life that I've lived in comparison to Frank's. I don't know how it is that I had never heard of this book nor movie. To avoid spoilers for those who have not read this excellent book, I will instead share with you one of my favorite parts of the book. Frank has written a composition on the Lord entitled "Jesus and the Weather" for an assignment in school. He is instructed to read it aloud to the class.

This book is written without quotation marks and is written in his true voice. There are many songs, poems and other such recitals within the book. There are so many endearing and wonderful things that Frank shares in the book that will stick within the confines of my mind for a lifetime. I only wish that I could meet him! What an amazing thing that would be.

On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale:"

If you have not read this book, it needs to be added to your MUST READ list. This is a book that will enrich your spirit and make you feel so grateful for not only ever meal you eat, but for your health as well. It is simply an amazing book!

For the genre Non-Fiction:Memoir, I am going to rate this book a 10 OUT OF 10.

In this book none of the characters have quoted dialogue. I thought this would make the story boring, maybe a little dry. I was wrong. Mr. McCourt's tragic tale is compelling and heartbreaking. He never gives up, through it all he keeps on going.

It's a good story and an interesting look into history.

5/19 Frank McCourt is in a life-or-death battle with cancer, according to the site IrishCentral.com
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Angelas-Ashes-author-in-life-or-death-cancer-battle-45346397.html

I chose to read Angela's Ashes for a school assignment because my older sister recommended it to me. Before I checked out this book, my high school literature teacher warned me that I would need to keep a box of tissues close while I read it. She was absolutely right.

In this memoir, Frank McCourt tells the story of his childhood. The book begins in New York where Frank lives with his depressed mother, Angela, his drunken father, Malachy, and his younger brothers, Malachy, Oliver and Eugene. After Frank's baby sister, Margaret, dies, the family goes back to Ireland, their home country. The McCourt family lives in a poverty-stricken neighborhood. They rarely have money to buy food or pay the rent because Frank's alcoholic father always drinks his wages. This book tells the hardships and tragedies of the McCourt family and the desperate measures that had to be executed as they struggled to survive.

Angela's Ashes is truly unique because of the way it is written. Frank McCourt creatively wrote his memoir without the use of dialogue in quotations. Instead, he wrote everything in paragraph form. This style of writing stunned me. At first I was confused, and it took some time to get used to it. As I read more and more of the book, I grew to appreciate Frank McCourt's individualistic writing that I found was often humorous.

Many book reviewers on Amazon dislike Angela's Ashes because it has a repetitive storyline and is overly depressing. Truthfully, I thought the same exact thing while I was reading it. However, I realized that the element of tragedy is what makes this book successful. Angela's Ashes made me realize that life is not always easy and how important it is to remain positive even through the toughest times. Angela's Ashes is an excellent read.

What a sad childhood this guy had. I think a lot of us can relate to a certain degree. It's great that he made something of himself even with a father like his that was a terrible role model. It just goes to show you no matter what we went through when we were kids, when you leave home you can rise above poverty by working hard and making the right choices. You don't have to be like your parents. This book kept my attention even at the very beginning. For me, if it starts out dull I won't read the rest but I could not put this book down. I can't wait to read the other one's.

Outstanding work. Sad, but somehow uplifting and funny. If there is one book to read about a poor Irish family this is it.

Wow- I finally got around to reading this nationally acclaimed memoir, and I was very impressed! Angela's Ashes was not what I expected, but from the first few chapters I was pulled in and found this hard to put down.

Angela's Ashes is a harsh look at Frank's upbringing and family life. You'll sympathize with him, you'll root for him, you'll cry for him.

I plan to read Tis in the near future. This book is a MUST READ! Go out and get it!

"Angela's Ashes" is an autobiographical story of Frank McCourt growing up in Ireland during the depression and World War II. Through the entire book I just really wanted something good to happen to this family, but it never does.

The first probably 3/4 of the book is incredibly eye-opening. It was amazing to me how little this family could live with, especially food. It made me see how resilient people can be, how little we really need, and the terrible circumstances some people live in.

If you don't read anything else in the book, the chapter on Frank's first communion is worthwhile. I was in tears reading it to my husband, laughing so hard at Frank's grandmother's horror at Frank throwing it up in her backyard.

Overall, I don't recommend "Angela's Ashes." It was bad while he was young and poor and that was difficult to read, but the last about 1/4 of the book the story turns south. Think young man growing up. He gets a little too much 'excitement' when he's alone and sometimes with others. Maybe McCourt is happy sharing his blatant immorality, but I don't need to read about it.

I love when I finish a book, close it, and just have to sit and breathe for a few minutes and let the greatness of it all soak in. When I finished this there wasn't even a hint of that. More like, "That was it?" There was some good, but it didn't overwhelm the bad.

Even at the worst of times people are able to hope for the better.
In the memoir Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, the McCourt family truly hopes for the better at the worst of times. Surrounding himself in poverty, Frank is born in Brooklyn, New York, moving to Limerick, Ireland at an early age, in the 1930s and 1940s. Only by the age of ten, Frank is soon immersed in a life with death, a father who drinks money away, and brought to the attention that he should die for Ireland. Even through the hard times, the impoverished McCourt Family's spirits remain strong.
Frank is absorbed in a life of hunger, sickness, neglect, and a father's alcoholism, "I know when my Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money, and Mam is desperate and has to bed at the St. Vincent de Paul Society and ask for credit at Kathleen O'Connell's shop but I don't want to back away from him and run to Mam. How can I do that when I'm up with him early every morning with the whole world asleep?"(208). All those effects characterize his reasons to escape from Ireland and rise from poverty.
Frank McCourt's writing and story truly changes your view and melts your heart. With its unique charm it entrances you within. It is narrated in first person, present tense, McCourt writes as he is experiencing it for the first time. It truly captivates you as a reader as it is told by Frank as a child, rather than reflecting on his past as an adult. With having it in immediate past it allows for the true culture of the time to come out. Religion and Irish sayings are used to convey how people really talked during his childhood. The author's tone is different from what you would expect. He writes in a style in which he states ideas as they are happening, which matches the tone as McCourt as a child.
I really enjoyed reading this book. This is the first time I have read a memoir about this time period, in Ireland, and it certainly encourages me to read further. Being of Irish decent, I appreciate how the author let the reader see how life was in Ireland. Reading it from Frank's point of view as a child made me further understand the life style he had and made me appreciate it even more. The reader learns the culture of that time period through Irish phrases and the use of the reoccurring appearances of religious aspects.
This memoir was a great read that in truly enjoyed. It teaches the reader that even with harsh times one can make the best of it and hope for the better. "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."(11)

This is not a happy story, yet it was very well written. Like most Irish authors, he writes with great sincerity. He makes you feel at home in his narrative. Although his family is very dysfunctional, there is a sense of love, warmth and unity that is undeniable. The only thing I didn't really like about this story was his resignation to their life of debauchery and deprivation. His attitude was:"This is the way we are and we are not going to change. Deal with it." This is not a positive attitude. He never showed any hope for a positive change in his life, and it didn't end with a lot of hope for the future. I think this story was a little overrated.

With the recurring theme of begging, starving, and deprivation, Frank McCourt tells of his childhood through mini vignettes in his memoir, Angela's Ashes, first published in 1996. "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," (11). Despite the sadness, Humor keeps Frank alive and vibrant. After he was born in New York, where his parents met and married, his family soon moved back to Ireland where they were originally from. The book starts off setting the gloomy tone with an alcoholic father of five kids providing no income to support the family. Being the oldest, Francis, also referred to as Frank, looks out for his younger siblings. However, even before the family moves back to Ireland, their youngest child and only daughter, Margaret, dies due to the family's harsh living condition. The children continue to beg, barrow, and steal food in order to survive, as their mother falls into a state of depression and continues to experience more hardships. McCourt shares his experiences in life through humorous tone while describing his depressing way of life. Francis tells the reader through the first-person narrative about his adventures and stories. Although his father repeatedly wastes his few earnings in the pubs, Francis and his brothers look up to their father and look forward to hearing his stories of heroic Irishmen. Within the memoir, McCourt's writing has the feel of a young boy and as he grows up his opinions on life develop to be more mature, giving you the feel that you are growing up along with Francis and are experiencing a similar lifestyle. Much lighthearted wit is found within Francis's school experiences, where he learns about his religion and common sense when dealing with the other boys at school. Francis comes down with a serious case of typhoid, requiring him to remain in the hospital for months where he develops a passion for Shakespeare. His interest in Shakespeare's work brings him to strive in school. Francis continues to carry on and preserver through life as he grows up...With the continuing cycle of lacking earnings brought home from Francis's father, Francis soon finds a job to support his family as World War I begins and his father is off in England looking for work. Even with the witty writing of McCourt, the strong depressing subject matter of McCourt's childhood brings an overall heartbreaking and distressing mood upon the reader, "When my mother sees Paddy on the street she says, Wisha, look at that poor child. He's a skeleton with rags and if they were making a film about the famine he'd sure be put in the middle of it," (120). After many family losses, home evictions, cold Irish nights, and foodless stomachs, Francis serves the family as a father figure and dreams of earning enough money to provide his family with food and clothing.

Many times as I was reading this book, I wanted to put it down. Angela's Ashes is not a happy story. In fact, the abject poverty, squalor, desperation and death make it downright depressing. But it is masterfully told. McCourt's first person writing style is real, genuine and so you feel along with the protagonist: abandonment, disappointment, shame, grief, anger, betrayal but also hope and joy and pleasure in the simplest things. The turning point is when Frank finally decides to forget about his father, a drunk who abandons his family, and become a man. The story becomes more poignant as we watch Frank struggle to transform himself. As the story ends, though, the reader gets a sense that life is going to be better (the protagonist finally makes it back to America after scrimping and scrounging and working his "arse" off to pay the fare. He feels in America he'll be able to do great things and the reader hopes so much that "'tis".*

What more can be said about Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir? We readers can simply revel in McCourt's literary achievement by treating ourselves to more of his unique kind of prose. In addition to Angela's Ashes, his astonishingly short writing career has produced two sequels - 'Tis and Teacher Man - that entertain us further as we take in scene after enchanting scene of this man's extraordinary life.

And an extraordinary life truly 'tis.

To read McCourt's memoirs is to experience the art of the possible and the power of the human spirit to triumph over even the worst of hardships. What McCourt accomplishes as an adolescent and then as a man in merely surviving a childhood of abject poverty and despair is remarkable. And then to achieve critical acclaim and the height of commercial success as an author is nothing short of spectacular! Winning the Pulitzer Prize is but icing on the cake!

If a memoirist's place in the world can be secured through his ability to spin an eminently readable story about his life that both edifies and entertains, then McCourt has more than secured his place. Generous and deeply satisfying are the lines that seemingly leap without effort from McCourt's pen. His writing has a uniquely winsome style that both charms the reader and leaves him craving more. We so enjoy reading about the McCourts that we wait breathlessly to find out how a given situation will play out.

McCourt draws us in with sentences that are light and airy and that refuse to collapse under the weight of an editor's pen. Punctuated sparingly, McCourt's writing reads much as a child relating a story would speak and delights us in its lighthearted tone and earthiness. A refreshing honesty permeates his prose and leaves us wondering how long it took this unusual author to perfect his storyteller's gift. An irreverent, distinctively Irish brand of irony also underlies much of McCourt's work, and in Angela's Ashes it fully grabs us and refuses to let go.

But McCourt's genius as a writer extends infinitely beyond his writing style.

His work is defined by his gentle handling of the depressing and the desperate, the miserable and the forlorn, the painful and the unspeakable. With uncommon humor and grace, McCourt relates the events of his childhood amid poverty, disease, and neglect in Limerick, Ireland in the 1930s. Hunger and disease stalk the McCourt children from the shadows of the Limerick 'lanes' they call home. Every day brings another test of wills with the vermin that multiply and flourish in the foul, squalid conditions.

A test even for stoic, young Frank, three of his siblings die as small children. Yet despite their difficult circumstances, Frank, Malachy and their younger brothers never succumb to the despair of the downtrodden nor do they accept the hopelessness of their lot in life. While their mother 'stares into the fire' and continually ruminates about her family's plight, the boys play on, finding ways to entertain themselves even in their destitute state.

Their father, Malachy, sometimes employed, more often than not, 'on the dole', frequently succumbs to the pull of the bottle and in the process fritters away what little money he earns as an itinerant factory worker. He is seldom employed for longer than a few months and eventually drops out of his family's orbit altogether while working in a London munitions factory. Frank seems to endure his father's chronic alcoholism and irresponsibility with a sort of world weariness that masks a deep, unrequited love.

Perhaps most poignant in McCourt's writing is this peculiar loyalty the McCourt boys have toward their father that extends beyond what could or should ever be expected. Ironically, the boys continue to hold their father in high esteem while he repeatedly demonstrates all the reasons they should not. In Angela's Ashes, McCourt never blames his father for 'drinking the pint' while his children go hungry, preferring instead to portray his father as an eccentric study in contradictions. (Malachy refuses to accept handouts, for instance; it is beneath him. Yet he readily accepts public assistance from the Irish government.)

With his father out of the picture and his family sinking further into poverty, Frank resolves to assume the role of breadwinner. His determination results in a series of jobs that put food in his brothers' bellies and pride once again in their hearts. Frank reaches for responsibility as much as his father studiously avoids it. Thankfully for the McCourt brood, Frank is a serious-minded adolescent who deeply loves his brothers. He will stop at nothing to keep them alive - even petty crime.

By turns raucously funny and painfully sad, Angela's Ashes is a joy to read. Through a gifted writer, we experience the resilience of children trying to make sense of the world in deplorable conditions, choosing to reject their impoverished state rather than be condemned by it. And we are witness to the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity. Their father alcoholic, their mother depressed, their home rife with infectious disease and gnawing hunger lurking around every corner... the McCourt boys somehow find a way to beat the odds.

That they are alive to regale us with their stories is both a tribute to the unquenchable spirit of the Irish and a gift to all humanity.

To see the humor in life's most desperate circumstances is to learn life-affirming lessons. To laugh along with Frank McCourt is to be let in on an exceptional author's 'wee bit of fun.'

Magnificent!

Without hope and a goal to live for, Frank McCourt could have become a member of the IRA, but instead he became a Pulitzer Prize winning author in America.
In the powerful memoir Angela's Ashes, the author, Frank McCourt, details his tragic and trying upbringing that compels him to strive for a better life for himself as well as his family. Living in poverty in Limerick, Ireland, during the 1930s and 40s, the McCourt's struggle to survive in a crowded drafty apartment. Frank's mother, Angela suffers from depression having witnessed the deaths of three of her children. His father, Malachy, is a constant disappointment because of his irresponsible drinking. McCourt contrasts his mother and father by writing, "The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's anyone in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith. Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says, Och, Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk." After being confirmed at church Frank is struck with typhoid fever. At the hospital, he is introduced to Shakespeare and we begin to see his passion for storytelling. Even with his father's negligent behavior, Frank still looks up to Malachy due to his entertaining stories about Irish heroes and Frank wants to develop his own talent for weaving a tale.
With the arrival of World War II, Malachy, along with many other men, moved to England to work in an artillery factory. Once again demonstrating his negligence towards his family, unlike many of the other men, he drinks away his earnings as opposed to sending them back to support his family. Frank, being an exceptionally smart student tried to continue school after graduating, which wasn't easy given their impoverished second class position in Ireland. He soon takes on multiple jobs that gave him a sense of responsibility. Even with the addition of his earnings, the McCourt's get evicted, forcing them to move in with Angela's cousin. While all this is happening, religion is the one thing that keeps him sane, keeps him fighting, and keeps the readers entertained; I continually found it amusing and ironic that Frank would constantly feel guilty about doing things that kept him alive and happy. He would go to confession many times throughout his childhood. This is also fascinating because it shows that with all the misery, they still believe in God, who remains their number one priority. Frank begins having an affair with one of his clients while working as a messenger boy, but again experiences heartbreak when the lady dies of tuberculosis. Frank works through everything imaginable in a great attempt to make it to America and create a decent life for himself.
Frank McCourt, as shown through this memoir, can accomplish anything. To bring this story to life he writes as if he were a child, as if he was writing in a diary. By doing this the reader is with the character every second of every day; the reader sees, hears, and feels what the author went through. Due to phonetic spelling and pore punctuation it is sometimes easy to get lost in the words, literally. Without McCourt's eloquent writing style that expresses much detail and humor, Angela's Ashes could have been a complete and utter bore, but he certainly pulls off this depressing and yet uplifting book with both attitude and irony. We begin the story in a state of weariness, but once we see that the protagonist is able to push through and have the strength to travel a different path then his father. We as readers are also given hope, which is the key to winning the reader's heart.

Frank McCourt writes in simple, straight-forward voice that both lulls the reader into his world yet effectively moves him through McCourt's story. The strength of the book is that it is written through the eyes of a child, and all of the memories that just 'are' to him are powerful and moving to an adult who can only imagine the difficult childhood McCourt faced. He tells one person's story and, in effect, tells the story of a generation. It will be a classic and should be required reading.

I resisted reading Angela's Ashes for a long time , simply thinking the book was over hyped.I saw Frank McCourt on PBS hosting a tour of Dublin pubs and his affability inspired me to pick this up. Now that I've given in my sense is that McCourt's genius in this was to write in the voice of his childhood self. The almost unbearable scenes of poverty and endless suffering he describes become through the eyes of a child something tangible and since it is a first hand account a testament of endurance and survival that ultimately lifts the spirit.

There are enough reviews below that summarize the outline of the story so I'll just say that occasionally a book or film live up to it's hype. Angela's Ashes is one of those books.

This book is the memoir of a young boy who was born in the US during the Great Depression who moved back to Limerick with his parents and brothers at the age of 4. It's a story about starvation and death and loss. But, it's also a story full of humor and strong family ties and hope.

I admit it. I frequently eschew books that I perceive as being sad or brutal. This book was both, but I am sooo thankful I've finally read it. This book could easily have been emotionally exhausting to the point that people would have trouble finishing it. However, the author very skillfully gives the reader a bit of a cushion from the raw emotion of life in Limerick in the 30's and 40's by making the narrative voice a tough, laconic kid (his younger self.) Frankie talks about these terrible life events in a very matter-of-fact way. He just accepts these sorts of things as part of his life. He recounts it to us so firmly, it gives the reader the license to be sad without being overwhelmed by the horror of it. Being a champion book blubberer, I appreciated that.

This memoir was a Pullitzer Prize winner and it shows.

If that title had not already been taken it would have fit this book perfectly. I resisted and resisted and resisted this book, but sometimes the masses are absolutely correct. This was a brilliant read and totally absorbing. I read it in two days time. At moments, I was in tears, the scene where the surviving twin searches the house for his brother is burned into my brain forever and at other moments I found myself laughing. This is the single best memoir I have ever read. Pick it up, now.

This was one of those best-sellers that truly lived up to its hype. Frank McCourt's prose and his incredible story of growing up very poor in Ireland, is one for the ages. Over 1,800 reviews of it here on Amazon tells you something.

If you missed this book - and the hype has longed died down over it so there is a chance you may not hear about it these day - take the word of reviewers here and take notice of all the awards the book won: this is good stuff!

Rarely I have read a book with so much sadness, humor, sweetness and tragedy all rolled into one.

The storytelling here was so good that a movie was made (almost word-for-word with the book). a sequel to the book was written and documentaries have been made about the McCourt family. In addition, Frank's ultra-crazy brother Malachy also wrote about his adventures.

I know it sounds like a cliche, but this is a story you will never forget.

I read this story for a book club, and that sense of accountability was the main reason that I finished it.

The McCourt family's life did not have to be so bad, and the children did not have to be malnourished.

I know we have no right to judge others, but how could the parents keep spending what little they had on alcohol and cigarettes and give the babies sugar water to quiet them when they were hungry? Didn't the children deserve some kind of priority? Didn't this constitute child neglect?

Some of the children did make it, but oh, things didn't have to be that bad.

I must say, this book was depressing. Although, more power to the author for ending up alright despite his childhood impoverishment and neglect.

I was loaned this book by a friend. He told me just to "trust him" and read it. I was hesitant and wasn't sure if I would like this book, but now you can "trust me". If you have any interest at all in Ireland, culture, sociology, or that particular time period you will love this insightful memoir. This book will stay with you, and after only a dozen pages you will be hooked and unable to put it down.

The basic problem with it is that while McCourt's life of poverty in Ireland is interesting and there are a couple of dozen well written passages and anecdotes, the work is atrociously edited. All the more galling for the lack of good editing is that this was McCourt's first book- he needed the help. The book is about 450 pages long and the 1st 300 pages deal with his first 6 or so years of growing up. We get the same images of infant death, Irish blarney, drunken dad, suffering mom, stalwart Frankie, and colorful Eriniana. The problem is that early childhood is necessarily the least interesting part of a life because a) the percentage of real memories per year is very low and b) the remembered is rarely cogitated upon enough to produce any coherent thesis of its import or meaning to a life.

At describing these things McCourt is excellent. The scene of him and his brother getting bananas from a vendor in Brooklyn and his mom thinking he stole them is excellent, BUT such only works its charms once. After about 50 pages we get the idea already: McCourt's early life was bleak- it's as if he wants us to really, really know he suffered. The opening page or so at first read seems to poke fun at the Irish habit of bemoaning their woes, but it quickly becomes apparent that McCourt intended no irony in its felicitous prose. He truly wants the reader to know the Irish suffering is on par with that of Jews, blacks, and American Indians. By going on for 300 pages with this the reader starts to turn off about a third of the way though, then skimming between the Godotvian feeling anecdotes of misery.

Things only pick up when Frank reaches his teens- he gets various employment, has a falling out with his mom and her lover, rues his dad's departure, loses his virginity to a consumptive girl who dies, then heads off for America. There are many moving images and wonderfully non-stereotyped characters. The scenes with his tubercular lover are priceless, yet their whole affair is accorded a mere couple of pages vis-à-vis the dozens allotted the repetitious sufferings. A good editor would have told McCourt he had an intriguing 1st draft, but told him to cut the early years down to 100 pages, and double the teen tales to 300 pages. That 400 page edition of AA would have deserved all the acclaim the canonical edition has, while also being over 10% leaner.

This is the main reason why the film version of the book is actually better than the written version. That said, it's far from a great film, but it more judiciously accords the interesting portions of McCourt's life, with about ½ the film on the early years, and the rest on the teen years. As a writer I've often said that the poor practices of editors, publishers, and critics have had a disproportionately deleterious effect on contemporary literature. A bad editor either does not realize a gem that falls in their lap, passes on it, or butchers it, or they get a diamond in the rough, like AA, but have not the sense nor insight to demand the necessary revisions. Toni Morrison has made a career out of having her ill-edited novels published. Yes, she's gotten acclaim, but once dead her trip to the canon will be fruitless because the poor editing of her work will become ok to speak of. But, McCourt was not Morrison- he was a first time author- his editor should have done a better job.

July 1999.

That summer was blistering hot and full of anticipation. Waiting for my beautiful son to arrive into our arms from Korea.

I had just finished up working full time in a children's Day Treatment program. I wanted the summer to "nest"...

to prepare for my son's arrival.

I spent the past two years of my social work career, day after day, listening to the stories of children.

Suffering.

And when permitted the children would allow me to enter their world and join them on their healing journey.

This work provided the daily miracles that can so easily be missed in any other setting.

Kids laugh, they pull pranks, they love to open gifts, they are still just kids in spite of the worst that humanity can toss at them.

Not even three weeks out from this counseling job, I picked up Angela's Ashes.

I don't know why... I just did.

In Frank McCourt's book, I found comfort. I found that optimism grows like a lotus flower out of the mud. I found the voice of an angel in the poverty stricken dirty streets of Limerick. I found the voices of all those kids who spilled their secrets behind my closed office door... lightening their load while I tried my best to make their world better... one kid at a time.

Frank McCourt is a ruddy angel with an acerbic wit and a gift for seeing things as they truly are.

I love ruddy angels.

This is a book that needs to be on everyone's to read list.

Yes, it is that good.

McCourt's child protagonist and his over-riding optimism, his natural-born inclination to make the best of things, makes an otherwise grim tale not only bearable but uplifting and heroic. Despite the daily, brutal grind of poverty, this child still manages to experience, wallow in, simple joys. Due to McCourt's honest voice, I felt every one of this kid's untidy, conflicted emotions. I LOVED this kid.

But after reading some of the criticism here, I think some people forget that this is first and foremost a MEMOIR. Memoirs are subjective by nature. So if McCourt's personal experience shows prejudice toward the Catholic Church, or if he seems to present a "stereotype" of the drunken, morose, Irish----that's HIS viewpoint----naturally. If you want a more balanced view don't read memoirs! Read academia! (It's like reading an autobiography of a politician and complaining that it's too political).

I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who loves to read. The naysayers included. It's not a pretty story, but it IS heroic.

The author begins his memoir with the voice of a narrator: describing people, events, etc. But, from the first chapter he slowly transitions into a man remembering & than goes back to when he was a boy. The slideshow of imagery & the depth of details made this a great read, despite the often brutal sadness of the story.

The innocence of a young boy of say 8 or 9 is experienced here like in no other book I have read. The young boy finds himself talking with "the angel of the seventh step," & wishing to hear stories of his mythical hero "Cuchulain." When the boy learns something for the first time, so does the reader. While he ages, his vocabulary grows as does his views of the world around him which starts to make more sense to him, no matter how unsettling.

The reader feels Frankie's angst when his alcoholic father comes home drunk after drinking his paycheck away. The descriptions of the strict Catholic school alone where he was not allowed to even ask a question in class made it seem more like a prison than a place to seek "knowledge & comfort." The living conditions in the Limerick of the 1930's-40's Ireland were truly on a third world level. Their home would flood in Winter, & the many family homes they lived in when they could not afford their rent are gut wrenchingly vivid.

The most poignant emotions are from Frankie's mother Angela.
The reader can feel her desperation & frustration with her useless husband, who often failed to keep a job because of his boozing.
Her anguish that she could not clothe or feed her sons, & her other children who were "dead & gone," & her feelings of shame that she had to borrow & beg in order to keep her family alive leap off the pages.
The dialogue & story captures the imagination, one can feel the chill of damp air & the sickness it brings. This book has it all, the sorrow, heartache, want, humor, & slivers of hope.

"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 ANGELA'S ASHES, Frank McCourt's amazing memoir of growing up in the direst poverty in Limerick, Ireland. The book opens in Brooklyn in 1935 when Frank, the eldest child, is only four. Frank's father, Malachy, has decided life in his native Ireland, hard as it may be, would be easier than life in Brooklyn. So, with his wife, Angela and their four surviving children - Frank, Malachy, and twins, Oliver and Eugene, (baby sister, Margaret has already died) - in tow, the McCourt family returns to Malachy's native Belfast.

One might think the return of a family member who's been gone for years would be an occasion for rejoicing. But this is Belfast and war is brewing, and as the reader soon realizes, Malachy's family is far worse off than the citizens of Brooklyn. After spending only one night in his family's small home, Malachy, Angela, and their children are sent packing - to Limerick, the town where Angela grew up.

Angela's family proves to be almost as unwelcoming as Malachy's, but the family does manage to find lodgings in "the lanes," a euphemism for the town's slums. And slums they are, make no mistake about that. There's no sanitary system to speak of, so the McCourt family finds summers and the almost unbearable stench almost as bad as winters when there's no coal to light the fire. The seemingly ever-present rain floods the McCourt's downstairs, forcing them to flee to the upstairs rooms, and the dampness of the River Shannon kills two more McCourt children and sends Frank to the hospital for months. Although heartbroken, the McCourt's accept their losses as simply their lot in a very, very difficult life.

The Protestant Malachy is shunned in Catholic Ireland and his northern accent makes it almost impossible for him to find work. When he does, he "drinks" his wages in the form of pints at the local pub before even going home, leaving his younger children with nothing but sugar water and the older ones lucky to get a potato for their dinner. Christmases consisted of a sheep's head, which Angela obtained from local charities.

ANGELA'S ASHES is a horrific, but beautifully written book, an episodic memoir rather than a traditionally plotted novel. This episodic quality however, takes nothing away from its ability to mesmerize and pull us into the world of pre-war Limerick. We sympathize with Frank as he endures a series of abusive teachers - until he finally encounters one who recognizes his intelligence. We empathize with him as he finds - then tragically loses - his first love. We chuckle (yes, chuckle, for ANGELA'S ASHES, grim as it is, contains humor aplenty) at his misplaced attempts to spread Catholicism, one of which provides quite possibly the book's funniest set piece.

Young Frank, during one of his first jobs must deliver a telegram to a Mr. Harrington, an Englishman who's understandably distraught over the death of his wife, Ann. When Frank knocks on the Harrington's door, Harrington is already drunk and asks Frank to watch over Ann's body while he makes a quick trip to the local pub for reinforcements.

Frank has obviously listened to his strict Catholic schoolmasters and he obviously cares about his fellow man. In a hilarious scene, Frank, not wanting Ann to suffer in hell because of her Protestantism, baptizes her a Catholic with sherry in place of holy water. Naturally, just as he's doing so, Harrington returns.

While ANGELA'S ASHES is filled with tragedy, harrowing events, and the direst of poverty, it's also filled with dignity, compassion, and genuine wit. This wit is, I think, what raises the book from a superbly written memoir to a genuine masterpiece and classic. But even though the book sometimes elicits a chuckle, more often than not, it brings a tear. One of the most harrowing images, for me, at least, was that of an always-hungry Frank voraciously licking the newspaper that had held his Uncle Pat's fish and chips.

Just as McCourt does a fine balancing act regarding humor and despair, he also balances his characterizations so our view of the persons who inhabit ANGELA'S ASHES is never one-sided. This is particularly true regarding Frank's father, Malachy. In the hands of a lesser author, Malachy could have become nothing more than exasperating and ineffectual, which, of course, he is. But McCourt also shows us his father's charming side as well. As irresponsible as Malachy is, he obviously loves his children, and it was their father, more often than not, who comforted his sons. It was Malachy who nurtured Frank's appetite for stories, giving him the tale of Cuchulain, Ireland's great savior, and the Angel on the Seventh Step, the being who brought two new babies, Michael and Alphonsus, to Angela. Perhaps, because of Malachy, Frank somehow finds the strength to endure and nurture his own dreams. ANGELA'S ASHES is, in many ways, a Cinderella story, a story of triumph, although at first glance, it would seem to be anything but. More than anything, though, ANGELA'S ASHES is a perfectly written, deeply moving book. Although filled with tragedy and despair, in the end, it's a glorious book, one that becomes a part of the reader and continues to grow within him years after the last page is turned.

Frank McCourt has a way with words! His memoir of growing up poor in Ireland, with a drunk for a father and lazy, shiftless mother is written without malice. He and his brothers are left to their own devices to keep themselves fed, warm and clothed when Frank, the oldest is not even four years old. They live in a house where the main floor floods every year and they have to wade through the sewage to live in the remaining room upstairs until the water recedes. They grow so cold that they resort to tearing the walls apart for firewood. And yet his mother needs her cigarettes and his father needs his drink.

Frank's tenacity and humor in the midst of such misery is his salvation. And it is what makes this memoir so poignant. His own parents and grandparents, neighbors and the Catholic church leave Frank and his brothers to their own devices for survival. And they survive! And go to America. And it's a true story.

Frank McCourt chronicles the story of his life in the streets of Ireland, his family living a life of poverty and hard luck. Somehow, he is able to make what should be a bleak story uplifting with his wit, humor and straight-forward approach to telling a story. Sometimes he gives you TOO much of the story, things you would rather not have heard--but I guess this is because it is a memoir. There is a certain amount of haphazardness to his writings...there are many times where you have no clue where this is going. But, at other times, there is an effort to be sentimental about the few things he has in life, or the hope of better days ahead.

An interesting style McCourt uses to write the book, where he virtually uses no punctuation during the many dialogue scenes. He also has many, many run-on, wordy, and obtuse sentences that would probably have one of his master's in school up in arms. It took me awhile to get used to this "rambling" kind of style, and, as an English major, it almost had ME up in arms, but actually, after reading the book, the pace of book quickens because of this style. There was enough of a compelling and engaging story to care too much about punctuation, or lack thereof.

As far as content itself, McCourt's story was highly entertaining and somewhat touching. While the young Frank is at school, he meets one strict school master after another, and he deals with the peer pressure from some of his classmates. The young Frank tries to keep all of the disappointments and failures and embarrassments behind him by reminding himself that one day things will change for him in America. There are times when Frank goes to the library to escape the world, knowing that he can escape into a story: "It's lovely to know that the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." Frank also experiences some time in the hospital with fever and eye problems, and in his first visit he meets Patricia, a girl who teaches him poetry. When he gets separated from her for talking to her, it is one of Frank's saddest moments: "Nurses and nuns never think you know what they're talking about...You can't ask questions. You can't show you understand what the nurse said about Patricia Madigan, that she's going to die, and you can't show you want to cry over this girl who taught you a lovely poem which the nun says is bad." Frank also deals with the trials of being in a family with an alcoholic father who rarely comes up, spends up the family's earnings, and some other dysfunctional relatives. He keeps hope that one day things will change for the better.

While the story is highly engaging, one thing that irked me was the abruptness of the ending. Without giving too much away, the memoir just seemingly ends without any deep moment or thought. The incident with Frank and the woman--- is that suppose to be some momentous or life-changing event? It seemed kind of stupid to end the book right there. It also made the book seem a little uneven; after all, here is Frank preaching about how he wants to help his family in the future, and then what does he go and do in the book's conclusion?

Criticism aside, this is an enjoyable read, which I honestly didn't think would be possible based on what I had heard about the story. McCourt is able to intertwine humor and heart-break in a way I've never seen done before.

Was a gift for my daughter who rarely reads and she loves it. Read it through in a couple of days.