Angela’s Ashes — A Memoir Of A Childhood
A Pulitzer Prize Winner 1997
Frank McCourt
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.
Angela’s Ashes is a memoir told through the eyes of Frank McCourt the oldest son of Malachi and Angela McCourt. His story is breathtaking. Littered throughout the pages are personal antidotes, some of which will make you cry and laugh, while others will make you angry. There are not many storytellers that can pull off what Frank did… to get inside the head of his readers and provoke three or four different emotions on just one page. They do say though, that the Irish are gifted storytellers. Frank is clearly an example of this.
Frank was born in New York in the 1930s, to father Malachi and mother, Angela. Soon after his birth came another brother, Malachi, then twins Oliver and Eugene. A sister Margaret followed. Born into a cycle of poverty… with his dad drinking away all his earnings, it wasn’t long before they were all starving.
She struggled to get at his pockets. ‘Where’s the money? The children are hungry. You mad oil’ bastard, did you drink all the money again?’
Without proper sustenances, baby Margret was their first child to die. In a rut the McCourts hoped they might fare better back in their homeland, Ireland. Packing their few belongings they returned and set up house in the Limerick slums. Their home was constantly damp with rain, and they had to a share a toilet with people living on their street. They still had little money and could barely afford to eat. It was no wonder the twins, Oliver and Eugene became ill and died.
Grandma comes and tells Mam she has to get up. ‘There are children dead,’ she says, ‘but there are children alive and they need their mother.’
These are shocking circumstances, three infant children, dead. How the Mc Courts survived emotionally, I don’t know. I guess they didn’t have any choice but to go on. And it wasn’t all bad, they did have some funny moments.
She spat twice on my head
‘Grandma, will you please stop spitting on my head,’
‘If you have anything to say, shut up. A little spit won’t kill you.’
####
‘Come here tomorrow. Your name is Frances, isn’t it.’
‘Frank sir.’
‘Your name is Frances. There was never a St Frank. That’s a name for gangsters and politicians. Come here tomorrow at eleven and read to me.’
####
Mrs. Dooley says, I’m disgraced, so I am, disgraced. ‘My daughters can’t wash theirselves of a Friday night without the whole world gawking in the window and them boys there are in a state of sin and should be taken to the priest for confession before their Confirmation tomorrow.’
Despite their impoverished circumstances, Angela went on to have two more children Michael and Alphie. Sadly her husband Malachi couldn’t control his alcoholism and eventually disappeared from the family unit, leaving Angela to raise her boys alone. Throughout the memoir, Frank talked of his love of reading. I suppose in a way it was a sought after escape from reality.
Patricia says she has two books by her bed. One is a poetry book and that’s the one she loves. The other is a short history of England and do I want it. She gives it to Seamus, the man who mops the floor every day, and he brings it to me.
There are four big books, Butler’s Lives of the Saints. I don’t want to spend my life reading about saints but when I start, I wish the rain would last forever.
Frank was a clever boy, he did well at school and seemed to enjoy his studies. Below is a conversation between Hoppy O’ Halloran, Frank’s school teacher, and Frank’s mother.
She comes to see him and he talks to her in the hallway. He tells her that her son Frank must continue school. He must not fall into the messenger boy trap. That leads nowhere. Take him up to the Christian Brothers, tell them I sent you, tell them he is a bright boy and ought to be going to secondary school and beyond that, university.
It turns out the Christian Brothers didn’t want Frank. Most likely because the McCourt’s were poor… not good enough.
‘We don’t have room for him,’ says Brother Murray, and closes the door in our faces.
In the end, Frank leaves school early anyway. The family needed the extra income.
It’s hard to sleep when you know the next day you’re fourteen and starting your first job as a man.
From the moment Frank started working he had aspirations of escaping Ireland and making a better life for himself.
I start thinking about America and how to save money for my fair instead of squandering it on fish and chips and tea and buns. I’ll have to save a few shillings from my pound because if I don’t I’ll be in Limerick forever. I’m fourteen now and if I save something every week surely I should be able to go to America by the time I’m twenty.
From the age of fourteen, Frank’s saves his money. A month before his nineteenth birthday he almost has enough to pay his way to America. Then a woman he knows dies, and in Robin Hood type act he helps himself to some of her cash, finally enabling himself to make the journey.
I stand on the deck with the Wireless Officer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, ‘My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn’t this great county altogether.’
If my post on Angela’s Ashes takes your fancy, go buy the book. It really is a terrific read. And not only that, Frank wrote a follow up called,Tis. Another interesting yarn. Before I finish off, I’d like to tell you about the time I actually met Frank at a literacy lunch. He was a jolly good speaker revealing all kind of facts he left out in the book, as well as interesting tidbits about his teaching career. It was a most memorable day, I even got his autograph.
Frank McCourt died on the 19th July 2009. I was sorry to hear the news. He was a literary great.
