Angela's Ashes

by Frank McCourt | Biographies & Memoirs |
ISBN: 068484267x Global Overview for this book
Registered by EC-1stUMC-OBCZ of El Centro, California USA on 1/9/2005
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by EC-1stUMC-OBCZ from El Centro, California USA on Sunday, January 9, 2005

Hardcover
Editorial Reviews
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"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.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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"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.

Journal Entry 2 by EC-1stUMC-OBCZ at Community Center, NAF (Navy Base) in Seeley, California USA on Sunday, January 9, 2005
Released on Thursday, January 13, 2005 at about 7:00:00 PM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Community Center, NAF (Navy Base) in Seeley, California USA.

RELEASE NOTES:


Journal Entry 3 by Abbynormal92243 at Naval Air Facility BOQ/BEQ in Seeley, California USA on Thursday, January 13, 2005

Released 19 yrs ago (1/13/2005 UTC) at Naval Air Facility BOQ/BEQ in Seeley, California USA

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RELEASE NOTES:

released after Bookcrossing presentation at Officer's Club, 7pm Thursday January 13, 2005

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