Angela's Ashes

published	2005 by Harper Perennial
first published	1999
binding	Paperback
isbn	0007205236 (isbn13: 9780007205233)
pages	432
literary awards	Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, 1997; 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
description	"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse ...more [close] "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 cliches 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 for a compelling memoir. [close]
date added	03-05-07 edit book

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Emily rated it:

03/06/08

Read in March, 2008

My review:

This book was definitely different from anything that I’ve ever read before. The whole structure of the story and the topic was something that I’ve never really ventured to read before. Throughout the story, there was very little punctuation which made the storyline hard to follow sometimes. McCourt also used a lot of Irish slang that was a little hard to understand at the beginning. However, these two factors definitely added character to the story and added to the feeling of ...more My review:

This book was definitely different from anything that I’ve ever read before. The whole structure of the story and the topic was something that I’ve never really ventured to read before. Throughout the story, there was very little punctuation which made the storyline hard to follow sometimes. McCourt also used a lot of Irish slang that was a little hard to understand at the beginning. However, these two factors definitely added character to the story and added to the feeling of poverty and illiteracy that was present throughout the book. At some points it was difficult to concentrate and continue with the book because it was slow moving. However, throughout the whole book there was a good balance between focusing only on the important parts of Frank McCourt’s life, and summarizing and skimming over the unimportant parts details. I gave this book 4 stars.

Summary:

The story begins with the main character, Frank McCourt, talking about how his parents met in America and his version of the story shows us how from the very beginning there was conflict between the couple and their families. We learn that Frank’s mom and dad were married because of the pregnancy, and not necessarily because they loved each other. A bit of history is shared about both of his parents. When Angela’s (Frank’s mother) cousins discover that Angela is pregnant, they force Malachy, Frank’s father, to marry Angela. Malachy is an Irish drunk who tries to escape from marrying Angela by running off to California. However he accidentally drinks his train money away at the pub and loses his escape plan. Frank is born and baptized and a year later is joined by a brother named Malachy. After that, Angela has twin boys, Oliver and Eugene. Throughout the next portion of the book, Frank talks about his hardships in America and how his father always drank away their money at the pub and they had no food or money for clothes. Frank’s father a very patriotic Irishman and when he comes home drunk late at night he tells Frank and Malachy to get up and sing songs and promise to die for Ireland. Soon after, Angela has a daughter whom they name Margaret. Malachy, Frank’s father, loves her so much and she inspires him to stop drinking. However, she dies shortly after and Malachy is devastated. Angela also falls into depression and however much her neighbors try to help her, the situation does not improve. Angela’s cousins eventually write to Angela’s mother and ask for money to send Angela and her family back to Ireland. When they get to Ireland, they meet Malachy’s family, who does not seem to approve of his family. The grandmother tells Malachy that there is no work in Ireland, so they should go ask for money at the IRA because Malachy helped out in the war efforts. The next morning the family takes a bus to Dublin and they find the IRA pension office. However, the man there refuses to give Malachy any money because there is no record of his services. From there, Frank’s family goes to meet Angela’s family, who is no more welcoming. With the help of the grandmother, they find a room to stay in, but soon discover that the mattress is infected with fleas. Angela goes to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for charity, but everyone there is suspicious because she has a ‘Yankee coat’ and ‘Yankee children’. However, she tells them of her baby’s death and they feel for her and are not as rude. Soon, Oliver becomes ill, and he goes to the hospital. Oliver dies, and the next day Malachy spends all the money on drinks at the pub. The family moves again, and Angela starts getting their money from the Labor Exchange because she does not trust Malachy with it anymore. Frank and Malachy start school, and it is a tough place where the teachers are strict and not always reasonable. Soon after, Oliver’s twin brother, Eugene, dies of pneumonia. Malachy drinks himself drunk and Angela needs to take pills for her nerves. They move into a house, but in the winter, the first floor floods and the family moves up into the second floor and calls it ‘Italy’. On Christmas morning, Frank and Malachy attend mass with their father and then they go about the streets collecting coal so that their mother can cook the dinner for Christmas. Soon Angela gives birth to Michael, who is sick with a cold from birth. Frank’s father makes boots for the boys by using pieces of tire, but they are made fun of by the boys. Frank attends mass with his father on Easter. He wants to understand everything, but it is hard and he wants to grow up and become an adult so he can know things. Frank’s father gets a new job, but he eventually loses it because he is too drunk and misses work in the morning. Even though Malachy, Frank’s father, is a drunk and takes all the money, Frank loves him because of his entertaining stories and his fun attitude. Frank experiences his First Communion, and goes for his First Confession. He is worried about his sins, but the priest is amused and says that everything is okay. He throws up the Communion wafer and his grandmother’s celebration breakfast, and she is very worried that ‘God is in her backyard’. That night, Frank sneaks into a movie with his friend. Soon, Frank catches typhoid fever and is in the hospital. He talks to a girl in another room and she tells him stories and poems. He is eventually moved because he is not allowed to talk to her because she has a different sickness than he does. She dies while he is in ward all by himself. His father goes to England to find work and send money back, but he never sends the money. Frank gets a couple jobs and helps out the family. He likes the responsibility and the good feeling he gets when he brings home the money for his mother. Soon, they are evicted because Angela cannot pay the rent anymore and the boys had cut down the walls for firewood. They stay with Laman, Angela’s cousin. Frank doesn’t really like Laman, and after a while, Laman kicks Frank out. He goes to stay with his uncle, who eventually gets annoyed of him. Frank starts stealing food from his uncle. He gets a job as a messenger boy and meets a girl. They begin to have a sexual relationship, and she eventually dies because she has consumption. Frank feels very badly and thinks that he sent her to hell. On his 16th birthday, he has is first pint and comes home drunk and slaps his mother. He feels horrible and starts crying in church. He confesses all his sins. Soon, he has saved up enough money to go to America. He says goodbye to his family, and he is very sad to leave them. He meets a priest on the boat to America, and he meets an American woman on one of the stops. He is very excited to see America, and has great expectations.

Selected quotes:

“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.”

“This is my own mother, begging. This is worse than the dole, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Dispensary. It’s the worst kind of shame, almost as bad as begging on the streets where the tinkers hold up their scabby children.”

“Now I have only two brothers at home and Mam says her family is disappearing before her very eyes.”
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Eric rated it:

09/13/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in September, 2007

Before I get too deep into my review, let me just say this: "Angela's Ashes" is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. That said, it is also fascinating, heartbreaking, searingly honest narration told in the face of extreme poverty and alcoholism. This absolutely entrancing memoir follows an Irish-American-Irish-American (more on this later) boy who comes of age during the Depression and the War years in a country gripped in the stranglehold of the Catholic Church, tradit...more Before I get too deep into my review, let me just say this: "Angela's Ashes" is one of the most depressing books I have ever read. That said, it is also fascinating, heartbreaking, searingly honest narration told in the face of extreme poverty and alcoholism. This absolutely entrancing memoir follows an Irish-American-Irish-American (more on this later) boy who comes of age during the Depression and the War years in a country gripped in the stranglehold of the Catholic Church, tradition, rampant poverty and unemployment, and the seemingly ubiquitous curse of the Irish: alcohol.

Young Frank McCourt is born in American barely five months after his parents were wed. (Naturally, he will ask later about the math.) His father squanders the family's wages at the pubs and soon the family (with new children seeming to drop on a regular basis) moves back to Ireland. Frank and his family move from slum to slum as his father drifts aimlessly from one job to the next and from one pub to the next, coming home at midnight to rouse his boys from bed, making them promise to die for Ireland. Everywhere for Frank is misery: at school, at home, in the weather, in the dreary conditions of Limerick, and in a fiercly pious populace. Forced to be a man long before most kids even have a paper route, Frank is soon working to supplement whatever his mother can get handed from the government or begging while his father is off working and drinking in England's wartime industries. Frank dreams only of returning to America, where "everyone is a movie star."

This novel is so incredibly heartbreaking not only because it is true, but because it highlights the devastating conditions faced by millions (and which sadly continue). The work is a stinging indictment of alcoholism without being a polemic, merely a recollection of what was everday life of the narrator's family, courtesy of his father's drinking. McCourt's supreme strength is in narrating the book through the eyes of his younger self rather than as an adult commentating or proselytizing about what he saw and did as a young man. The young Frank makes choices out of survival instincts and simply because they seemed right at the time (i.e. stealing to eat while promising himself to pay it all back later). On top of the normal perils of adolescence--sexual awakening and social awkardness--Frank, and countless young people like him, needed to grow up far too early to stave of homelessness for himself and his family in the absence of his drifter, drinking father. And ultimately, it is also the quintessential immigrant story of saving up enough to leave the Old Country behind in pursuit of a better life in America.

Approach "Angela's Ashes" with both caution and an open mind. Bring tissues and try not to condemn. Be like young Frank: Observe without damning.

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Allison rated it:

05/03/08

Read in May, 2008

Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes
New York: Touchstone, 1999
363 pp. $14.00
0-684-84267-X

Frank McCourt was born into a miserable Irish Catholic lifestyle during times of great depression. In “Angela’s Ashes,” he reveals the most unmemorable recollections of his family’s constant struggles for food, money, and hope in regards to their unreliable source of income and the intensity of the poverty at the time. Having a father who drinks away his wages, Frank is constantly looked down...more Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes
New York: Touchstone, 1999
363 pp. $14.00
0-684-84267-X

Frank McCourt was born into a miserable Irish Catholic lifestyle during times of great depression. In “Angela’s Ashes,” he reveals the most unmemorable recollections of his family’s constant struggles for food, money, and hope in regards to their unreliable source of income and the intensity of the poverty at the time. Having a father who drinks away his wages, Frank is constantly looked down upon because of his raggedy clothes and lack of hygiene. However, he learns to hold his head high and have faith from his painstaking mother, Angela.

Throughout the memoir, Frank recounts his young years in America and the transition to Ireland. Constantly struggling with empty stomachs, Frank and his siblings Malachy, Oliver, and Eugene keep each other company in America. After the birth of their sister Margaret, things look more optimistic for the McCourts as their father stops drinking. Angela happily announces, “He’s in heaven over that child. He hasn’t touched a drop since she was born. I should’ve had a little girl a long time ago” (McCourt 30). Things quickly change, however, when Margaret passes away and the McCourts are forced to move back to Ireland to leave the haunting tragedy behind.

The transition to life in Ireland is not any easier than life was in America. The McCourts again suffer with little income and the deaths of several children. Frank and Malachy attend school but are discriminated against because of their American heritage. They also become brothers to Michael and Alphie, who are born into a world of constant struggle. Their father who eventually goes off to fight in the war tells them to stand strong and die for Ireland. As Frank grows up, he receives his first job with pride and transitions through several others. Along with his success, he also encounters several illnesses, but he constantly strives to earn enough money to move back to America. The hope of moving to America serves as Frank’s motivation through the difficult times.

“Angela’s Ashes” captivates the reader’s attention and leaves one anxious to find out if life improves for the McCourts. The reader will not want to put the memoir down, for the harsh yet vivid description lures one into the story, rooting for Frank to overcome the conflicts in his life and journey back to America.
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Teresa rated it:

05/29/07

Read in May, 2007

In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt paints a picture of a childhood mired in poverty. He manages to be humorous and heartbreaking, and hopeless and triumphant all at once. I laughed, I cried, I felt dearly for the disadvantaged McCourt family that struggled against all odds.

The memoir borrows heavily from the art of realism -- as tales of impoverished childhoods usually are. McCourt was born in depression era Brooklyn to an alcoholic father who spent all his wages at the bar, and a mother di...more

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John rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

04/22/08

Read in February, 2008

Overpraised and insubstantive, the first installment in Frank McCourt's memoir cycle, Angela's Ashes, is mostly based around such an obvious cycle that its mind-numbing: "Times were tough and we were on the dole. Me father drank and came home late at night waking us up and making us swear we'd die for Ireland. Me mother and me father fought and he shaped up. Got a job, but nobody liked him because he was from the dirty north. So he drank his first Friday's paycheck, was late to work ...more Overpraised and insubstantive, the first installment in Frank McCourt's memoir cycle, Angela's Ashes, is mostly based around such an obvious cycle that its mind-numbing: "Times were tough and we were on the dole. Me father drank and came home late at night waking us up and making us swear we'd die for Ireland. Me mother and me father fought and he shaped up. Got a job, but nobody liked him because he was from the dirty north. So he drank his first Friday's paycheck, was late to work on Saturday, and the boss fired him. So we was back on the dole. Times were tough." Seriously, 300-odd pages of this, on loop. The more gripping sequences are in the beginning, when the McCourts first arrive in Ireland and are so sickly that it seems like at least two children die per chapter. You almost had to wonder why they don't, I dunno, just STOP REPRODUCING, but I guess I'm not that Catholic and thus can't understand. Anyways, it's harrowing and heavy, and most important, hasn't become a pattern yet. I was able to hang with this part. But once the last child dies, about 70 pages in, and the story shifts moods from ultra-depressing to whimsical for a while ("me neighbor wanted me to dance for a few pence, but I was so poor I only had one shoe, so I could not dance properly. Och, it was a jolly spectacle!"), and it's just the above sequence on repeat, I simply had a struggle understanding why the bloody hell this book won a Pulitzer. I suppose it presents a brutal picture of poverty in Ireland in the early 20th century, the prejudices and sufferings that result from it. And it subtly comments on the senseless bitterness of the IRE / UK divide. But, really, I've read Frank McCourt derivatives (Damian McNichol, for example) who are more poignant and less didactic than this novel. Worst was the conclusion; young adult Frank arrives back in the U.S., and sleeps with the neglected wife of a WWII vet on his first night in the country. "Isn't it great, this America?" his travel companion asks. "'Tis." Frank responds. What the hell? ...less

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Angela rated it:

(review of isbn 068487217X)

08/22/07

bookshelves: haveread

Read in September, 1997

It's been ten years since I've read this book. Like everyone else I was floored by it when it first came out. But time and age have made me wiser.

I don't think it's stood the test of time and the more I think of it... my grandmother is right. It's a one-sided, depressing view of life in Ireland.

"Woah is me..." is the book in a nutshell. This book simply has you marinate in negativity. Maybe I've read too much Phillip Roth in the meantime and compared to his characters this boo...more

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8 comments

Dustin rated it:

05/09/08

Read in May, 2008

I borrowed this a book a few years ago from my brother and finally picked it up last week and couldn't put it down--so yeah, Brayd, you can finally get your book back... Before reading the book, I knew very little about it. Aside from the obvious recommendations by my family and the Pulitzer people, I actually had very mild expectations. For most, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but this is a great book that really resonated with me. I don't have first hand experience with hunger, death ...more

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Honore rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

07/19/07

bookshelves: negative-rating-on-the-pritchard-sc

I simply can not begin to fathom why Angela's Ashes garnered so much attention, much less seemingly endless lofty praise. Not only is it the most contrived, sappiest, self-pitying, typical Tale of A Poor Immigrant, ever, but as one of Irish-Catholic ancestry myself, I found it to be so incredibly, unbelievably insulting, I almost threw it across the room. The Smug Mr. McCourt somehow manages to affirm EVERY negative stereotype of the Irish that exists. This is how the sto...more

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6 comments

Janelle rated it:

04/15/08

Read in March, 2008

recommended to Janelle by: Judith from work

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This book was very good. I think my favorite part of it is that it is a memior and his life was sooooo rough. I can't remember my childhood in such detail like he can, granted, I didn't have the distraught childhood memories that he did. I won't lie though, I didn't love this as much as I thought I would. Hence, the reason it took me a month and a half to read. It might have been because nothing really GOOD happened in Frank's life. I think my favorite part of the book was his little affai...more

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Mayla rated it:

06/01/08

Read in August, 2007

In Angela's Ashes, the main character Frank McCourt deals with hardships little kids shouldn't even have to bother with. He comes from an Irish family who move back to Ireland when America put too much on their shoulders. He was the first baby Angela (mother) and Malachy (father) had and was born in New York. During his life, he has to cope with poverty and humiliation.

Frank writes, ". . . nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic fath...more

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Sara rated it:

09/30/07

bookshelves: advisorybooks

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: Young Adults

This is a memoir about the author, Frank McCourt. Frank describes the life of him and his mother, Angela’s life. It was a terrible life that they had to live. It starts out by describing how his parents meet. Angela, his mother, married his father, Malachy when she was pregnant. During the time when he was born, his mom struggles to feed her family, because his father, Malachy was spending most of his money on alcohol and other stuff. The most devastating thing for Frank and his mom wa...more

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David rated it:

07/15/07

bookshelves: embarrassed-to-own, hideously-vile-protagonists, intellectual-con-artist-at-work, mind-numbingly-boring, utter-dreck

But the worst offender of the last twenty years has to be the uniquely meretricious drivel that constitutes "Angela's Ashes". Dishonest at every level, slimeball McCourt managed to parlay his mawkish maunderings to commercial success, presumably because the particular assortment of rainsodden cliches hawked in the book not only dovetails beautifully with the stereotypes lodged in the brain of every American of Irish descent, but also panders to the lummoxes collective need to feel supe...more

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11 comments

Anne rated it:

03/21/08

Read in March, 2008

This is McCourt's memoir about growing up povery-stricken in Ireland with his alcoholic father, multiple siblings, and depressed yet enduring mother. Now that the memoir genre has taken over the bestseller lists, I did feel like reading Angela's Ashes 10 years after its publication was kind of like watching "Star Wars" in 2008, after so many advances have been made in special effects. Yet, McCourt's story is brilliantly written - I particularly appreciated that he told the stories from...more

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Abby rated it:

04/24/08

Read in January, 2000

This book was soooo good. The movie they made based on the book was TERRIBLE. Here is why: in the book, horrible and terrible and awful tragic things are happening to the author in his youth. It's awful. However, you are inside of the boy's head and hear his thoughts. He is hilarious! He misinterprets things and has a totally child like way of seeing everything.

I remember when he takes his first communion, he gets sick and throws up afterwards. His Grandma freaks out and scoops up the vomit,...more

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George Bradford rated it:

03/16/08

bookshelves: ireland

“If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you was dead
If you had the luck of the Irish
Then you’d wish you was English instead”

How can ONE book be so WONDERFUL and so HORRIBLE at the same time? I have no idea. But this book is both. Big time.

It’s difficult to imagine anything worse than a childhood crushed under the oppressive conditions of abject poverty, relentless filth and unmitigated suffering. The childhood described i...more

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Shawn rated it:

11/04/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in September, 2007

The book begins with Frank McCourt, the author, living in Brooklyn with his Irish parents and three younger brothers. Being incredibly poor already, Frank's father keeps them in poverty being an alcoholic. His mother soon becomes pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl named margret who dies very soon. After this tragic event, the family moves back to Ireland. Having no money, they live in horrible conditions that soon lead to the death of two of Franks younger brothers. Frank then becomes incre...more

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Angela rated it:

10/20/07

bookshelves: memoir-of-a-sort

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in October, 2007

I really neither liked nor disliked this book. The author's repeated exposure to desperate situations of the pauper's lifestyle in WWII era Ireland didn't really have any effect on me as I was reading them. No "Oh, my god, that's horrible!" reactions. More like, "Oh, that sucks... moving on...."

It took me a REALLY long time to get past cringing over the writing style (which is more just a LACK of style than anything else).

This, I find, is the biggest problem with m...more

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Bookshop rated it:

(review of isbn 068487217X)

07/29/07

bookshelves: biography

Read in January, 2007

I bought this book a long time ago and was not keen on reading it due to its depressing content. Furthermore, I noticed way too late that the conversations in this book are not framed by quotation marks indicating conversations. I am peculiar about these things because I dislike the feeling of reading a long list of text.

Anyway, one day, Tita and I were talking about books and she said this book was funny. I've heard sad, depressing, touching but not funny. I was deeply curious.

It is ind...more

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Ms. added it (review of isbn 068484267X)

04/19/07

bookshelves: ireland

From the Publisher

"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 the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank'...more

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Darby rated it: