Angela's Ashes

Filled with Frank McCourt's amazing compassion and comedy on every page. This book is magnificent and has all the makings of a classic.

"When I reflect on my early years, I question how I was able to live at all. Naturally, it had a terrible childhood—happy childhoods are scarcely worth remembering. The unhappy Irish childhood is much more awful than the average miserable childhood, and the miserable Irish Catholic upbringing is even more miserable."

This marks the start of Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning book. Born to recent Irish immigrants in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, he grew up in the Limerick, Ireland, slums. Since Frank's father, Malachy, works seldom and drinks his earnings when he does, Angela, Frank's mother, is unable to provide for the children. However, Malachy—annoying, careless, and charming—does foster in Frank a need for the one thing he can offer: a narrative. Frank adores his father's stories about the angel on the seventh step who sends his mother babies and Cuchulain, the hero who rescued Ireland.

Maybe this narrative explains how Frank survived. Frank faces poverty, near-starvation, and the casual brutality of family and neighbors while wearing rags for diapers, asking for a pig's head for Christmas supper, and collecting coal from the wayside to start a fire. Despite all of this, he survives to relate his story with eloquence, energy, and incredible forgiveness.

With Frank McCourt's incredible compassion and comedy permeating every page, Angela's Ashes is a magnificent novel with all the makings of a classic.