Genealogy Books - Angela's Ashes

Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Utterly Baffled at All the Praise
Comment: After 52 pages, I had to stop reading. My free time is too precious. And I feel terrible about the
money spent -- I now have a renewed commitment to use the library.

If you want to read an
intelligent, compelling memoir I'd highly recommend Jill Ker Conway's "The Road from Coorain." And
an absolutely incredible book about diaries and memoirs is Alexandra Johnson's "The Hidden Writer."
Another great memoir is Kathleen Norris's "The Cloister Walk." These are just a few that come to
mind.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great Book!
Comment: McCourt's memoir is sad and entertaining all at once. While commenting on the condition of the
social classes, the author manages to instruct and charm the reader; carefully weaving honesty and
naiveté together to reveal the experience of the `miserable Irish-Catholic childhood'. I would
definately recommend reading this book. I hope 'Tis is just as good!

Customer Rating:

Summary: A Child's Odyssey
Comment: Beautiful and moving. Lingers in the mind after the story is done. A friend said they had trouble
with McCourt's writing style and I told them to read it like you were reading music lyrics...because
in a way it is a song or a collection of them. Very bittersweet. I won't retell the plot, you
already know by now, doubtless.

He paints a picture of life so bleak that it's hard to believe
it's occuring in 20th Century Europe and not some Dickensian urban setting. I never in my life knew
that an egg could be so highly valued until I read this memoir. It's good soul food for the eyes.
Read it.

I also might recommend Helias' The Horse of Pride if you're interested in the history and
ethnography of fading European cultures.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The Best Memoir of the Last Century...
Comment: This is possibly one of the best memoirs of the last century... It tells of the life of Frank
McCourt, ages 3-18. The book is wonderful and well-paced. It runs a bit long, but it is worth the
time as every page is better than the next. I was personally shocked by some parts, because it
describes the scenery so vividly it's almost haunting. The special thing is that Frank does not
write this from an adult point of view, but from a child's, never writing what he regrets now or
lamenting too much on his mistakes or tortures. I also read "Tis", his second book about his life in
New York, and i have to admit it's not as good, partly because he's all grown up and partly because
Ireland thoroughly fascinated me... I would recommend this book to absolutely everybody.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great book!
Comment: Angela's Ashes is a gloomy, yet humorous, biography about growing up from the eyes of a child during
the depression era in Brooklyn, NY and Limerick, Ireland. The story explains what it was like living
during this time in poverty, while captivating the reader with vivid imagery and detail.
" From
October to April the walls of Limerick glistened with the damp. Clothes never dried: tweed and
woolen coats housed living things, sometimes sprouted mysterious vegetation. In pubs, steam rose
from damp bodies and garments to be inhaled with cigarette and pipe smoke laced with the stale fumes
and spilled stout and whiskey and tinged with the odor of pee wafting in from the outdoor jakes
where many man puked out his weekly wages." (p. 12)
Angela's Ashes begins in Brooklyn, NY where
Frank McCourt was born to Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan. His parents were both Irish
immigrants. Frank McCourt writes about his very early childhood stories in New York such as when his
family had to sleep in a. Frank, along with his three brothers, his sister, and his Mom and Dad,
soon move to the slums of Limerick, Ireland, in hopes of finding a better life back home as well as
a well earning job.
Life wasn't nearly as easy as they expected back in Ireland. Frank's mother
Angela, a depressed mother, has little money to feed her children. Frank's father, Malachy, rarely
worked because of his drinking problem. When Malachy finds a job, he immediately drinks his weekly
wages away. Frank and his family have to survive and live through appalling and dire living
conditions. They are forced to live in a flat so miserable that every year Frank's family had to
pack themselves into one upstairs room when even the winter floods made the first floor unlivable.
"The upstairs room was "Italy" because it was warm and dry and downstairs was Ireland, for it was
wet and cold." (p. 96)
Though life may have been depressing for Frank's family, Frank finds
humor in his miserable daily life. The book follows Frank McCourt through the pre-mature deaths of
his brothers and a sister, his depressed mother, and the sacrifices she makes to feed and shelter
her family. It also highlights his adventures with his Catholic school friends, and at his Catholic
school brought on by a strict teacher who convinced him of damnation if he did not perfectly behave.
Angela's Ashes highlights a number of jobs that Frank has to help aid his family upon the departure
of an alcohol-enslaved father, such as working for a poor Englishman who is handicapped, and finally
his own departure to start a life of his own back in America.
" 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." (p. 11)
The answer is clear
how Frank McCourt survived through his childhood. Frank McCourt finds humor through everyday life.
Although Frank shows anger towards his father many times throughout the book, he loved to hear his
father's stories. Frank lived to hear his father's tales of the Angel on the Seventh step, which
brings his mother's babies and Cuchulain, the hero who saved Ireland.
Frank McCourt tells his
story honest and realistically. Though there isn't a clear climax, after Frank is dropped from his
current job, he has to beg for any food or money he can obtain. Frank is near starvation, he is
cold, has no shelter, and even catches typhoid fever. But Frank's dream of moving to America is not
ruined because of his near-death situation. Will Frank ever be able to live a healthy life back in
America?
Unlike other biographies or non-fiction books I have read, Frank McCourt right his story
as it was. Proper English is
Angela's Ashes is by far the best book I have ever read. Though
Frank McCourt may have had a distressing childhood, he uplifted the book with his unique and
enjoyable humor. His writing is hilarious. I chuckled at even the little things. Frank described his
threats of eternal damnation because of the naughty things he thought of in his boyhood. I was
uplifted by Frank's hopeful perspective of life and his funny little anecdotes of his childhood. My
favorite anecdote was when Frank and his brother try on their parent's fake teeth, and Franks
brother get sent to the hospital to get the removed. The ending of the book was not as captivating
as the rest of the book. It was long and tedious as it described Frank's job as a telegram deliver.

Frank McCourt shares with his readers an honest, vividly detailed, and humorous memoir of his
childhood. This is a fascinating book that I would recommend for ages 13- through adulthood. As I
finished the book with an uplifted spirit, I was blown away by the reality of what it was like
growing up in Irish Catholic poverty. It definitely taught any reader to not take things for
granted. Angela's Ashes is truly an incredible and marvelous book.

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