Frank McCourtRecommended by the New York Times book review in an article memorializing his death
I have been reading, just needed a break from blogging. It is a whole different ball of wax.
This is supposedly one of the first in the memoir genre, if it is McCourt set a very high bar. I love his style. Very stark, straight forward, telling the story like it is writing style. This is a particular challenge when you are telling the story of your younger years. There is such a temptation to etherialize or romanticize what you experience when you are little because you are trying to make sense of it in the context of who you have become. McCourt will have none of that.
This is a fairly brutal true story of Frank McCourt's life growing up extremely poor. Step back from whatever impression you have about the term "extremely poor" and magnify it by ten. Maybe even twenty. The family lives in New York, they cannot hack it and go back to Ireland where conditions are far more harsh and the family faces far deeper struggles. Half the little brood of children die of what ostensibly is from starvation. The cold and lack of food, and with that the quest for some semblance of hygiene, is the families sole focus. The babies are constantly fed sugar and water in a bottle.
Angela is McCourt's mother. I suppose the title is a tribute to her endurance and suffering for the sake of the family. His father, although extremely lovable and charismatic, when sober, is a stereo-typical catholic Irish who can't keep money in his pocket for "the drink." He will spend two weeks of wages in a night, forego the next day of work and be out on his ear until the next job rolls around. Which is not that often to begin with.
I love Court's writing. He seems to become more animated as he moves into puberty and is trying to figure out how his body and his religion work together. He has the Catholic guilt (can I call it "the guilt"?) and tries desperately to be good. During this time, he also spends excessive amounts of time in the hospital. For him, they are some of his best times. Not only does he get three square meals (something he literally has never had) but he gets inspired by poetry and Shakespeare (even though its English).
"I wish I could talk to the girl in the blue dress or anyone about the books but I'm afraid the Kerry nurse or Sister Rita might find out and they'd move me to a bigger ward upstairs with fifty empty beds and Famine ghosts galore with green mouths and bony fingers pointing. At night I lie in bed thinking about Tom Brown and his adventures at Rugby School and all the characters in P.G. Wodehouse. I can dream about the red-lipped landlord's daughter and the highwayman, and the nurses and nuns can do nothing about it. It's lovely to know the world can't interfere with the inside of your head." Pg 202 (emphasis mine)
I look forward to reading more McCourt.
Book 46
Angela's Ashes is my favorite book. If you want a real treat, listen to the audiobook -- there's nothing like hearing Frank tell the story. It is phenomenal. I was lucky to have been a student in his Memoir writing workshop at the Southampton Writers Conference in 2007. He told me that they didn't want him to do the reading for the audiobook; I'm so glad he won that argument. I'm glad you enjoyed the book; 'Tis and Teacher Man are fantastic, too. (again - real treat to listen to the audiobooks!).
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