Who Would Like This Book:
Frank McCourt's memoir is a gritty, honest, and unexpectedly funny look at a childhood filled with poverty, loss, and perseverance in Limerick, Ireland. What stands out is McCourt's gift for storytelling - he narrates from the perspective of his younger self with innocence, humor, and just the right touch of Irish wit. Readers who love powerful memoirs, coming-of-age stories, and tales of overcoming adversity will be captivated. If you're interested in social history, family dynamics, and resilient voices that can find humor amid hardship, this is a must-read.
Who May Not Like This Book:
Angela's Ashes isn't for everyone - it can be pretty bleak, with relentless descriptions of poverty, alcoholism, death, and the failings of both family and community. Some readers find the unvarnished tone, repetitive cycles of suffering, and the lack of traditional punctuation and quotation marks off-putting. If you prefer uplifting stories or lighter memoirs, or if you struggle with nonlinear, unconventional prose, you might find this a tough read. Some have also questioned the accuracy or tone, and there’s a fair amount of strong language and mature themes.
About:
Angela's Ashes is a powerful memoir by Frank McCourt that delves into his childhood growing up in poverty in Limerick, Ireland. The book vividly portrays the struggles faced by the McCourt family, including extreme poverty, alcoholism, and loss of siblings. Despite the bleak circumstances, McCourt's writing style combines humor with tragedy, offering a poignant and emotional account of his upbringing.
The narrative follows Frank McCourt from his boyhood to his late teens, chronicling the hardships and adversities he faced while highlighting moments of resilience and hope. Through McCourt's honest and raw storytelling, readers are immersed in the bleak yet sometimes hopeful world of a poverty-stricken Irish family, offering a unique perspective on survival, family dynamics, and the impact of poverty on childhood.
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Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of poverty, alcoholism, child neglect, death, and discussions of childhood trauma which may be distressing.
From The Publisher:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland.
"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's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy-exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling-does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors-yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.
Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.
Ratings (173)
Incredible (31) | |
Loved It (82) | |
Liked It (38) | |
It Was OK (13) | |
Did Not Like (9) |
Reader Stats (295):
Read It (182) | |
Currently Reading (1) | |
Want To Read (62) | |
Did Not Finish (5) | |
Not Interested (45) |
2 comment(s)
Well this was depressing and heartbreaking, need to cuddle up with a teddy bear and chocolate after this... But it didn't change the fact that I found this book to be very interesting and fascinating, to be able to see how horrid people can have in the childhood yet rise from it.
Wonderful memoir about growing up impoverished in Ireland and then immigrating to the US
What can you read after
Angela's Ashes?
About the Author:
Frank McCourt (1930-2009) was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, grew up in Limerick, Ireland, and returned to America in 1949. For thirty years he taught in New York City high schools. His first book, Angela's Ashes, won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. In 2006, he won the prestigious Ellis Island Family Heritage Award for Exemplary Service in the Field of the Arts and the United Federation of Teachers John Dewey Award for Excellence in Education.
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