Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt

book data

29,339 ratings, 3.96 average rating, 2,491 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		32%
4		40%
3		20%
2		4%
1		1%

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published

October 3rd 2005 (first published 1996) by Harper Perennial

binding

Paperback, 432 pages

setting

Ireland

literary awards

Pulitzer Prize for Biography/AutoBiography (1997); National Book Critics Circle Award (1996); Los Angeles Times Book Prize (1996)

isbn

0007205236 (isbn13: 9780007205233)

description

"Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," writes Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes. "Worse yet is ...more

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08/27/07

Eric rated it:

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.

(less)

Like this review? yes (13 people liked it)

1 comment

07/15/07

David rated it:

bookshelves: embarrassed-to-own, emotionally-manipulative, 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

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

26 comments

05/29/07

Teresa rated it:

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 m...more

Like this review? yes (7 people liked it)

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03/16/08

George Bradford rated it:

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

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

1 comment

08/22/07

Angela Paquin rated it:

(review of isbn 068487217X)

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 cha...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

9 comments

07/16/07

Honore rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

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 story goes, more or less...more

Like this review? yes (5 people liked it)

8 comments

07/15/08

Beth(MN) rated it:

(review of isbn 068484267X)

bookshelves: 2009, biography-and-memoir, nonfiction, pullitzer-winners, tnbbc-spring-challenge

Read in April, 2009

I ended up really enjoying this book, in spite of my earlier frustrations with it.

To say this book is depressing is one of the grossest understatements I've made in the past year. The book is narrated by the very young Frank McCourt and follows a child's stream of consciousness to describe the things he sees but doesn't always understand. As he gets older, the narration implies less and becomes more stark as Frankie develops the ability to see and understand what is happening in ...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

3 comments

10/19/08

Louise rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2009

Though this book was a bit gritty in its portrayal of the poverty in Ireland, I felt I caught a real glimpse of how desperate the times must have been. It made me think again of all that I enjoy. I can't even imagine how the people could live on so little. The writing style is different, but it felt natural, like he was telling you the story, first hand. It was easier to read, even for the awful circumstances described. It was this description that was hard to digest, not the style of writin...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

4 comments

02/06/08

Alicia Kimball rated it:

(review of isbn 068487217X)

Read in May, 2007

There are not words to describe how horrible I felt this book was. First, I was somehow under the impression that it was a WWII novel, so that was a disappointment to begin with. I really felt like the theme of this novel was how to survive life's trials and difficulties by masturbating. Someone please tell me if I am way off here.

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07/09/08

Eileen rated it:

bookshelves: irish

Read in December, 2002

If I could give this book negative stars, I would.

Not only is McCourt a poor writer, but the exaggerated (and villifying) depiction of his father is grotesque. Yes, the man was an alcoholic but look at the circumstances which drove him to drinking in excess. He initially has his family's best interest at heart, but due to the political and social circumstances in both America and Ireland begins to despair. One can only imagine the stress, depression, and loss of pride McCourt's fath...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

01/06/08

John rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

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 on Satu...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)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

11/05/07

Ryan Dietz rated it:

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

I am currently touring Ireland. I have been here for two months and I leave in a few days. Since I have been here a while I have become more and more interested in Irish life. I have a few Irish friends and I have been fascinated in Ireland's rich and tumultuous history. This book is a heartbreaking and at times humorous story of Frank McCourt's impoverished childhood, the atrocity's the Catholic Church reigned upon the very people they were to be helping and the determination for a better l...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

11/09/07

Gail rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

bookshelves: 2007, irish-themes, memoirs

Read in January, 2007

What, did NO one find this book funny except me??? I must be really perverse.
Although the account of Frank's bad eyes was almost physically painful to read, the rest of the story didn't seem too odd or sad or overdone to me. My dad's family were immigrants; his father died young of cirrhosis of the liver, leaving my grandmother to raise her six living children (of a total of 13) on a cleaning woman's pay. So? Life was hard. They weren't Irish and they lived in New York, but when you hear t...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

3 comments

10/09/07

M is for Mallory rated it:

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

I can't put this down! I'm getting such a dark kick out of Frank McCourt's childhood. Favorite line that had me laughing out loud: "Oy, you Irish. You'll live forever but you'll never say challah like a Chew." I'm devastated this book is ending; it's been the most pleasurable part of my days over the past week. It's of course depressing, I mean, like he says in opening "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhoood, and worse yet is the miserable ...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

4 comments

04/30/08

Vivazoya rated it:

One of my most favorite books and authors of all time. I can't get enough of Frank's stories. I also listened to him tell it on an audio recording, and it's even more awesome listening to his Irish accent. The most compelling characteristic of his writing is the ability to write about a subject as dire and despairing as poverty and neglect, and make it so blisteringly funny, I'm in tears. Then in another chapter, I'm crying with grief over the loss of his siblings and the humiliations of his...more

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01/31/09

Jan rated it:

(review of isbn 0684874350)

bookshelves: biography, ireland

Read in January, 1997

I loved this book. I started out buying it as a gift for my mother. That might have been the last time I visited her at Christmas time (I'm not crazy about driving trips in the winter). And while there, I started reading it. I knew it I had to buy it for myself when I returned home. I did. And I read the book in about a week, if that long.

I'm part Irish. But you don't have to be Irish to like this book. Matter of fact, a lot of the Irish didn't like it because it exposed just how po...more

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3 comments

01/15/09

Carolyn rated it:

Read in November, 2008

Angela’s Ashes is the first of three memoirs written by Irish author Frank McCourt. Angela’s Ashes was published in 1996, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The story was made into a film directed by Alan Parker in 1999.
Frank McCourt begins his story with the tale of how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. When Malachy gets his mother Angela pregnant with Frank, she marries him and the two start their life together in a small apartment in Brooklyn...more Angela’s Ashes is the first of three memoirs written by Irish author Frank McCourt. Angela’s Ashes was published in 1996, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The story was made into a film directed by Alan Parker in 1999.
Frank McCourt begins his story with the tale of how his parents meet in Brooklyn, New York. When Malachy gets his mother Angela pregnant with Frank, she marries him and the two start their life together in a small apartment in Brooklyn. Angela gives birth to three more sons while in Brooklyn; the second son is Malachy, followed by twins Oliver and Eugene. Malachy Sr., Frank’s father, proves to be a hopeless alcoholic who cannot hold onto a job for more than a few weeks at a time. Some motivation to improve his behavior comes with the birth of a daughter, Margaret. When Margaret passes away in their Brooklyn apartment, only a few weeks old, the McCourt family moves back to Ireland, where twins Oliver and Eugene both die within a year. Two more sons Michael and Alphie are born in Limerick, into a gritty world of discomfort and suffering.
Frank McCourt’s story is an absolutely miserable one. He opens the novel explaining the extent of the misery that was his childhood. “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.” The McCourt family eventually settles into a less-than-comfortable house on a sorrowful lane in Limerick. The lane shares just one lavatory among all the houses, which happens to be located in the McCourt’s backyard. In addition to the cold and the rain, the McCourt family has to endure the stench of their neighbors dumping their sewage on windy days. Angela McCourt is left with no other option than to beg for the dole and handouts from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Malachy manages to drink away all of his wages in the pubs, and still cannot hold onto a steady job. During World War II, Malachy travels to England to work at a defense plant, yet he still manages to waste all of his money, and only sends wages home once. The McCourt children have one set of clothes and a pair of patched shoes each, struggling to live off of very little in their damp, cold climate.
Although Frank’s story is desperate and sometimes unbelievable, it is full of good humor and adventure. The reader is certain to find themselves laughing out loud many times throughout the course of the book, and there are countless quotable passages between the covers. As a memoir, this book is particularly interesting because it is McCourt’s real account and interpretation of his childhood. He paints a beautiful picture with his words, telling what was going through his mind as he grew up in brutal conditions in New York and Limerick. McCourt recounts the days when having an entire egg to himself for breakfast was an exciting and noteworthy luxury, and his clothes were held together by his mother’s obvious stitch work, while some children in his class had no shoes at all. McCourt’s voice and rhythm are very distinctive, and I would definitely rank him among my favorite storytellers. Angela’s Ashes is a powerful masterpiece which tells a true story about pain, hunger, desperation, love, heartbreak, and, above all, strength. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good read which is full of humor, but also very meaningful.(less)

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09/04/08

Julie H. rated it:

(review of isbn 0007117213)

bookshelves: biography

What a beautiful book. You will never look at your home's second story the same way again after reading of the flooding incident and how the family retreated to the upper story. I add this to the long line of reasons for wishing my Grandmother were still around so that I could ask about stories of our family's past in Cork. Read. This. Book.

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comment

03/10/09

Peterna rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in April, 2009

recommends it for: Those who love romanticist fiction but have some tolerance for naturalism.

This is the unfinished story of Angela, the mother of Francis McCourt (aka Frank McCourt, the author). Many readers may feel it is written in bitterness, but they must be wrong. The book bubbles with wit. Readers may feel it is a tale of despair, but it leads to a future not yet told. Some may feel it is shot-through with cruelty, gilding grime and polishing puke, praising primitiveness and lauding ill health and death.

McCourt certainly draws the reader into the hollowness of poverty...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

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01/18/09

Patrick rated it:

bookshelves: audio-book

Read in January, 2009

Entertaining and amazing story. I'm a bit biased, perhaps, being part Irish. And having been to Ireland on vacation last year. I'm now dying to read 'Tis.

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

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